What He Requires
by MissiAmphetamine
Summary: Sixth year; something's up with Draco Malfoy. He's become a loner, looks like death warmed up, and is barely even being a git anymore. Harry thinks Malfoy's become a Death Eater, but Hermione thinks it has something to do with a Hufflepuff tie, the Room of Requirement, and a pair of French knickers. So, Hermione decides to figure out what's *really* going on with Draco Malfoy...
1. Part One

**Disclaimer:** The 'verse and the characters a JK Rowling's – all hail the supreme creator! I'm just gleefully playing in her sandbox, and own nothing except for my original plot concepts and characters, so please don't sue me; you'll get no joy from that anyway :D

**Author's Note:** Thanks to a plot bunny that a wonderful reader bounced into my head, I'm writing a short Dramione fic. It'll be 16,000 words maximum (probably more like 10 or 12,000 words,) and I'll post it in two or three parts. It's a slightly alternate take on their sixth year, following loosely along with HBP canon, and it's a little bit sweet, a little bit angsty, and a fair bit…strange.

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**What He Requires**

**1.**

**Wednesday 6****th**** November, 1996**

"I still think there's something going on with him, Hermione. Look at him," Harry directs in a whisper, glaring past Hermione's shoulder, and obediently – long-sufferingly – Hermione swivels as unobtrusively as possible to eye Malfoy. He sits at the Slytherin table of course, but Pansy is no longer by his side, and he speaks to no one. He's nudging at his porridge with his spoon idly, but that cold, pointed face looks pinched and ashen, and wears a far-away, drawn expression. Hermione has to admit, Malfoy doesn't look well. She pulls her eyes away from him just as he looks over towards the Gryffindor table, and she flushes faintly, wondering if he saw her staring. She leans forward towards Harry, keeping her voice low.

"Maybe there is, Harry, but I still think you're wrong about him being a Death Eater. He's too young. I just don't think Voldemort would –" Neville sits down next to Hermione and she cuts herself off sharply, smiling widely at Neville and bestowing a cheerful 'good morning' upon him. Their conversation turns to lighter subjects than whether or not Draco Malfoy is a Death Eater, and Hermione is rather glad for that, because Harry has been harping on about Malfoy for ages now. She's sick of hearing about it, when there's nothing they can do to prove whether he is or not – and personally, she doesn't think he is.

Harry is fixated though, and Hermione has to admit he has a point about Malfoy's general appearance and behaviour lately being quite suspicious. Gone is the loud-mouthed, arrogant bully, and in his place is a withdrawn, haggard looking boy who only lashes out in retaliation. He's not with Pansy anymore – rumour is, the Slytherin witch actually ditched him, which was odd considering how much she'd been fawning over him at the start of the year. But the accuracy of the rumour is somewhat in question, seeing as Hermione heard from Luna, who heard it from Cho, who was told it by Anthony Goldstein, who said that Viola Dermott, the Slytherin girl he was tutoring, had been told by her year-mate Astoria Greengrass, who had overheard her sister Daphne and Pansy talking about it. The Hogwarts' grape vine is a convoluted affair but from the dejected air Malfoy has carried around lately, Hermione won't be surprised if the rumour turns out to be truth.

Either way, Malfoy's acting oddly, and Harry's convinced it's because he's a Death Eater and is obsessing over that, in between the times he's not being irresponsible with that mysterious potions book, or trying to do Dumbledore's tasks. And Ron's too busy with Quidditch and snogging _Lav-Lav_ to pay any attention to either Harry _or_ Hermione at the moment, and Hermione is beginning to feel…adrift. Restless. Irritated. She nibbles at her marmalade on toast and chats absently with Neville, friendly and light, but inside she's feeling rather unsettled. Everything seems a little off-kilter, with Harry and Ron both so pre-occupied with their own personal goings-ons, and she without anything to do herself, except study, and that's nothing new – it's just what she's always done.

There's a commotion across the Great Hall – the shatter of a plate on the floor – and Hermione and Neville break off their discussion about the difficulty of getting South American _Dilmiliss Ruebenia_ plants to bloom in the greenhouse to stare across the Hall at the Slytherin table. Malfoy is saying something angrily in a low voice to Blaise Zabini – a denial of something, Hermione wants to guess, from the gestures he's making – and then he stalks off with hunched shoulders, leaving his untouched bowl of porridge shattered on the floor. Blaise laughs, but when the other Slytherin students seem to be querying him, he shakes his head regretfully and smiles a smug smile, mimics zipping and locking his lips. It's only when he sits down, that Hermione notices Pansy Parkinson is at Blaise's side, and she smiles up at him adoringly.

Hermione curls her lip and turns back to Neville with a smile. "You were saying that it's rather prone to root-rot?"

**Tuesday 12****th**** November, 1996**

Hermione's late – she can't believe she's _late_. She's agreed to help a fourth year Muggleborn on their Transfiguration extra-credit essay in the library this free period, and she _forgot_. So now she's hurrying along the corridors at a brisk power-walk, digging through her bag, hoping she has the book she needs because she's already ten minutes late, and Keenan's essay is due tomorrow, and she's busy the rest of the day, and she _promised_. She's not looking where she's going, head bent over her bag, hair fluffing out wildly and cheeks flushed, panting as she flies along. It's hardly surprising that when she rounds a corner at a pace of power-walk that her Aunt Gerry would be proud of, Hermione goes slamming into another body.

They collide hard and a shock goes all up her arm, her bag falls off her shoulder and down her arm, tangling in the other person's bag and hooking them together, and she goes tumbling to the floor. A body lands half on Hermione with a thud that nearly cracks her ribs and she _oofs_ as the breath is crushed out of her. Her bum hurts and her elbow stings, and when she opens her eyes to luminous grey ones, her heart nearly stops. They are pretty eyes. Charcoal rings around the irises, and crackled grey like shattered glass to the pupil, framed by long lashes, that are surprisingly sooty for who the eyes belong to. Hermione jerks in a breath as she realises _who_ exactly they belong to, and recoils as much as is possible with her back on the stone floor and Draco Malfoy on top of her.

His eyes flutter and then focus on her face, and horror shapes his expression for a brief moment – and this close, he barely looks like _Malfoy_ anymore. He is just straightness of nose and point of chin, fullness of lips and gaunt angles of jaw and cheekbone, and those fluttering luminous grey eyes beneath brows that are so, so dark compared to his white-blonde hair. He is not _Malfoy_ this close, so close that Hermione can see his pores, and a scabbed over tiny scratch at his temple, and that he has a faint crease etched between his eyes even when he's not frowning. He is a composite of _parts_, a collection of features that don't seem to belong to anyone at first. And then he sneers and Hermione feels recognition at last, the melding of who she knows him to be and who he appears to be.

Only Draco Malfoy can sneer with such utter contempt.

His hand crushes her arm, his knees shoves painfully into her thigh as he scrambles up as though burnt. He treats her like she's part of the floor to shove off of, and she cries an '_ow!_' and glares at him ferociously from her undignified position sprawled on the floor, panting and sore from where she hit the floor, and where he elbowed and kneed and shoved at her to get up. Unfeeling, horrid, _evil_ git…who's currently on his hands and knees swearing in what sounds like panic as he shoves items back into his bag. Hermione sits up, eying Malfoy in his panic, and rather enjoying the sight of him all flustered and – and actually upset. Scared. That's fear on his face and in his voice as he mutters to himself angrily, too low for Hermione to make out the words, bar a curse or two.

She frowns and scrambles up onto her knees, beginning to gather her own spilled items, all tumbled together with his things. She's silent, not saying a single word, waiting for him to turn his anger onto her, but he doesn't – he seems too lost in the frenetic collection of his belongings. It's not normal. It's not _natural_. Malfoy should be taking great pleasure in mocking and taunting and berating Hermione right now – he should be trying to make her feel like the lowest, clumsiest vermin on the entire earth right now. But instead he almost seems on the verge of crying. Actually _crying_. If he was anyone other than Draco Malfoy, Hermione would ask solicitously what was wrong. But he isDraco Malfoy, so she just keeps her lips zipped and sneaks puzzled sideways glances at him as she shoves her things back into her bag.

There is something under her stripy jersey – it's a Hufflepuff House tie, and Hermione picks it up, wondering how it got there, amongst her things, when a hand snaps over her wrist. She jerks back but Draco holds her wrist tightly, his eyes filled with an odd, dangerous desperation as he glares at her. "That was in _my _bag, Granger."

"Let me go." Hermione glares back at him, contrarily clutching tighter at the tie, because he can't just grab her wrist and hurt it, and boss her about. "Let me go!" Her voice fairly cracks the air, and Draco's lower lip trembles, his eyes go all tight with a strange sort of despair, and then he opens his fingers and releases her wrist. "Give it back." He is kneeling right in front of her, and she draws the tie stupidly back into her lap, both in the corridor staring intently at each other barely half a foot apart, and she's rather glad no one has passed them yet. Why does he have a Hufflepuff tie? What's going on? As Harry would say, it's terribly suspicious, and Hermione doesn't like how out of place it seems. What is Malfoy up to?

"Give it back, Granger."

"Why have _you_ got a Hufflepuff tie?" she asks without her brain consulting her mouth on whether it would be all right to speak, and Draco positively _glowers_ at her with suppressed, frustrated rage.

"None of your fucking business, mudblood. Now give it back," he demanded, snatching at it. She jerks it back, standing, hooking up her bag and staring Malfoy down furiously, shaking with anger at the slur he'd spat at her, and he stands too. He has reached his adult height, and towers over her now, his pale hair dropping over his eyes and his fists clenched at his sides threateningly – but somehow Hermione knows he is impotent, that he won't do anything to her.

"Who's is it?" she demands, for one made second thinking that Harry might be right – that Malfoy might be a Death Eater, and his job is to kill off Hufflepuffs, or something. She shakes away the madness, because there is obviously a reasonable explanation, and puts the tie behind her back, her other hand on her hip as she waits for him to answer.

"Give. It. Back. Granger." He steps forward, leaning over her, a dangerous slither to his voice, and Hermione remembers a little late that desperation makes people do things they otherwise never would. But why does a Hufflepuff tie make Malfoy so desperate? "No," she said primly and turned away from him, about to stalk off, because there's no way Malfoy needs a Hufflepuff tie, and it might belongs someone who will want it back. She can check the tie to see if it's labelled with its owner's name somewhere, and if it's not she can ask one of the Hufflepuffs to ask their Housemates if anyone's lost a tie.

Malfoy's hand closes around her wrist, jerking her to a halt, and Hermione whirls on him, about to snarl at him to '_let me go_' when he says, "Please."

There's a grinding resentment to his voice, but nevertheless, Draco Malfoy has said _'please'_ to Hermione, and she blinks up at him in shock as he says it again.

"Please. Granger." He tries not to looks so white and desperate; she can tell. He sighs, still holding her wrist, his hand shockingly warm and dry on her skin, with faint rough calluses from gripping a Quidditch broom. Hermione's world wobbles on its axis. His free hand swipes over his face, and she can see he's trying to suppress his anger, trying to look casual and irritated. But she can see through it, now. "Just give me the damn tie. Or do I have to hex you to get it back?"

She silently hands the tie back to him, the yellow and black fabric slithering through her hand into his large one, that she now knows is warm and dry and callused, and that is something Hermione didn't need to know about Malfoy. She doesn't give it back because of his threat; that doesn't scare her. She gives it back because for a moment she saw him underneath the mask, and he was so very scared and angry. He doesn't say thank you – he just stares at her for a moment, his adam's apple bobbing as he swallows, his grey eyes a little puzzled and she sees the anger and the fear and the…gratitude that flickers on his face for a split second. And then he turns on his heel and strides away, shoving the tie in his bag as he walks.

Hermione stares blankly after him for a moment, wondering what on earth _that _was, when she suddenly remembers the Muggleborn she'd agreed to help with his Transfiguration essay. "Oh _no!_" Her watch says she is now nearly twenty minutes late, and her shoes clatter on the stone floors as she runs for the library, hair flying out behind her, all thoughts of Malfoy's odd behaviour forgotten for now.

**Saturday, 23****rd**** November, 1996**

"Well, that is strange, 'Mione – very bloody strange. But I'm not sure what a Hufflepuff tie has to do with anything. It's hardly a Death Eater thing, is it?" Ron comments from his sprawl on the floor in front of Hermione's armchair, doodling broomsticks and snitches idly on a scrap bit of parchment with a rather leaky quill, his fingers getting all inky. Hermione is still mad at him about his obsession with _Lav-Lav_, but she has decided to try very hard to be mature, and suppress her intense irritation. He, Hermione, and Harry are tucked away in a private corner of the Gryffindor common room, which is empty, most of their Housemates having gone into Hogsmeade.

Only the first and second years are left, and Ron's glowering glances at them keeps the younger students from encroaching on their corner. Hermione has, after much private pondering, decided to talk to Harry and Ron about the incident in the corridor with Malfoy, and she doesn't want anyone overhearing. The _muffliato_ Harry cast earlier has ensured their privacy, although Hermione gave her bespectacled friend a glare for using it – no matter how useful it is, she doesn't like him using that book. He is browsing through it absently now as he nibbles on a chocolate frog, listening intently to he conversation. Multitasking – who would have thought Harry was capable, Hermione thinks to herself with a faint smile.

"It's not, really," Harry has to admit. "I'm still _sure_ he is, but that – I don't know what that's about. Maybe he nicked it off a Hufflepuff to be a prat, or something."

She shrugs, snuggling back into the cosy arm chair she's claimed for herself and frowns thoughtfully, fingers curled around the Charms textbook on her lap. She should be doing the required readings, but Malfoy's strange behaviour has been on her mind since it happened. She can't stop puzzling over it.

"Well, no, it's not Death Eater behaviour, but then I don't think he's a Death Eater anyway, Harry. But it's still odd, don't you think? I just can't figure out _why_ he was so insistent about _a Hufflepuff tie_, of all things. I don't see why he'd get so upset if it was just a tie he'd nicked from someone. He was so terrified that I'd found it, and so desperate to get it back, that it was like he just completely forgot to be a total bigoted arse."

"Merlin's balls, are we going to spend all day talking about that git?" Ron complains, and Hermione glares at him.

"Ronald! And no, we're not – I just thought Harry might like to know Malfoy was acting strange."

"Death Eater strange, Hermione. Not strange…strange," Harry comments with a fond smile to soften his dismissal of the incident, and Hermione bites back an annoyed retort. _She _listens to Harry go on and on and _on_ about Malfoy being a servant of Voldemort now, and he can't even spend five minutes pondering why Malfoy was so attached to a tie that he had forgotten to do what had always seemed to be his main joy in life – be horrible to Hermione. It hadn't been natural, and Hermione has watched him since, as closely as Harry has been watching him, and she is noticing all these things about Malfoy that if Harry or Ron were displaying, would have her terribly worried. Of course, it's Malfoy, so she's not worried – but she is intrigued, and confused.

Hermione has observed that Malfoy has withdrawn into himself entirely – he is no longer the Prince of Slytherin House, with all his loyal minions. He has become an outsider, a loner, and although that appears to be by choice, Parkinson and Zabini seem to be mocking him without him even retaliating – he just hunches up and retreats further into himself. This is not natural behaviour for Draco Malfoy, and the other students in Slytherin House appear to be as bewildered by this as Hermione is. Watching him in the Great Hall at mealtimes, Hermione sees Malfoy is not eating. He's walking around with bruises of strain and sleeplessness under his eyes, and he's no longer being the least bit cruel or horrible to anyone but Harry on occasion, and even that seems lacklustre.

Well, Hermione decides, as she opens her Charms textbook to pg 102 and begins to read, if Harry and Ron don't think it's worth investigating this aspect of Malfoy's odd behaviour, then _she_ will.

**Sunday 5****th**** January, 1997**

Hermione is rather enjoying insulting the Minter for Magic in all the clever ways she can think of, trying to best Harry's rather inventive insults. It is a passable way to spend the evening, as long as she ignores Ron and Lavender's behaviour across the common room, which isn't easy. But her mind is only half on what she and Harry are saying – she keeps thinking about what Harry had said about Malfoy and Snape. Harry is right – it is suspicious that Malfoy threatened Borgin by invoking Greyback's name. But Hermione still isn't convinced that something else entirely is going on. Her mind keeps going back to the stark fear in Malfoy's eyes when he saw Hermione holding that tie.

Why? What scared him so much? Hermione is convinced the key to his behaviour is not Snape, or Greyback, but that tie. She doesn't know why she thinks that, but she does. It's ridiculous, and even she can't explain it – she just has a _feeling_. Merlin, she's just like Harry with his feeling that Malfoy's a Death Eater. Well, now they're back at school Hermione can investigate Malfoy further, and see if she can figure out what his issue is. Before Hermione goes up to bed, she tells Harry that maybe he's right – maybe Malfoy is a Death Eater, and that she'll help Harry watch him, and look for evidence. It sounds a more reasonable explanation for spying on Malfoy than a Hufflepuff tie and a look of vulnerable fear – and it makes Harry happy to know that she thinks he may be right.

**Wednesday 29****th**** January, 1997**

Hermione is exhausted. It has been a long, tiring, horrid day, in which it feels like everything that can go wrong _has_ gone wrong, and she is feeling absolutely miserable. Ron has been an utter cad and inadvertently made her cry twice today, Malfoy – who looks even more stressed and haggard as the weeks pass – ran into Hermione on the way to Transfiguration and knocked her down, sending her books everywhere. She wouldn't have been upset by it because it was only an accident, except Malfoy took the chance to sneer at her and snarl, _'Clumsy mudblood bitch'_ before stalking off. It had been so unexpected after Malfoy's retreat into himself lately that Hermione had actually felt tears spring to her eyes – she is no longer inured to being called a mudblood and pushed around. She has let her guard down, and that comment has cut her to the quick.

So Hermione has decided to go up to the prefect's bathroom to have a nice, long soak and try to forget her misery. She doesn't use it often, but when she does she always feels better afterwards, it's so luxurious and relaxing. She treads her weary way up to the fifth floor, and thankfully when she says the password the door swings silently open – the bathroom unoccupied, or the door would have been bolted shut. Hermione steps inside with a quiet sigh and slams the heavy bolt home, and then spins around flattening her back to the door when she hears a wretched gasp all choked with tears. Oh _Merlin._ Malfoy is sitting on the floor – fully-clothed thank Merlin – leaning against the wall and desperately wiping at his tear-streaked face with the cuffs of his oxford shirt.

Hermione bites her lip, stunned into stillness. Malfoy is crying. His nose is snotty and red, his eyes are watery and bloodshot, and his breath is hitching wildly as he tries to calm himself. She doesn't know what to do. She's never seen him like this before. She's never even imagined Malfoy could cry like this, could look this miserable and…furious. He glares at her, scrambling to his feet and sniffling angrily, seemingly just as horrified and stunned as she is right now. He is crying and filled with mortified defensiveness, and Hermione reacts on pure instinct. She doesn't wonder how he got in, or tell him off for being in the prefects' bathroom, or laugh at him, because she's too busy staring at him with round, stunned eyes.

"I – I'm so sorry. I didn't know – the door was unlocked. Are you – are you all right?" is the first thing that comes out of her mouth, and Malfoy rears back as though she's slapped him and his lips form that familiar sneer of contempt. It's not quite so effective though when he's teary and snot-smeared, and his hands are shaking, and his shoulders heaving as he tries to steady his breathing.

"I bet you think this is really fucking funny, don't you?" he snarls, crossing the room towards her with jerky-quick movements, a disjointed prowl, and Hermione shakes her head fast. She feels sorry for Malfoy. She actually feels sorry for him. She doesn't think any of this is funny at all. She wishes desperately she'd never come up here. And he's very angry. She fumbles in her robe for her wand and can't find the pocket before Malfoy reaches her. He's suddenly in front of her lightning-fast, and his hands _slam_ against the door either side of her head, and his face is just inches from hers. She gasps and turns her head away, still scrambling for her wand in the folds of her robe, flattening herself further back against the door.

Malfoy doesn't seem as impotent now as he had in the corridor that day she'd seen the tie. Now he seems frighteningly dangerous. Hermione looks up at him and glares, her eyes narrowing. She puts her hand to her chest and tries to push him back, and her hand splays over his heart, and he is warm through his shirt and his chest is heaving raggedly, she can feel his heartbeat as she shoves at him and he resists for a moment. Hermione's breath wrenches in as his heart thuds against her palm, and suddenly her throat is dry and her mind is screaming at her that this is far more weird and embarrassing than find Malfoy crying. He seems to realise the intimacy of their position at the same moment as her, because as Hermione drops her hand, he steps back fast, and they stare at each other for a moment.

"No," Hermione says it in a voice that shakes a little. "I don't think it's funny. I'm not a horrible person who takes delight in other's suffering…" _like you do_, she finishes silently, and from his expression Malfoy hears those unspoken words just as clearly as she thought them.

"Oh fuck you, you high-and-mighty, self-righteous fucking _mudblood_," he spits and Hermione feels her blood go cold and her skin crawl horribly as he sneers at her. "You lying _bitch_. You're going to go running straight back off to Potter and the Weasel and tell them all about how you caught Draco Malfoy…" He stops and hitches in tearful breath and smudges his cuff over his eyes again, his ashen, thin face all pinched with anger and humiliation. "And you're all going to have a fucking good _laugh._"

"No I'm not!" Somehow it seems important that Hermione defend her honour to the Slytherin – she doesn't want even Malfoy thinking she is a liar, and a horrible person. That isn't who she is. "I would never tell anyone that I saw you – well. I wouldn't. That would be wrong."

"That would be _wrong?_" he asks, in disbelief, as though she is an alien and he can't understand her at all. Hermione supposes in Malfoy's mind, there would be no comprehension of it being wrong to kick someone when they were down; to him, there was probably no better time. She folds her arms across her chest, gaining a little mental equilibrium, and nods. "Yes. I know that's a foreign concept to you, Malfoy, but some of us actually have moral standards. So, I'm not going to tell anyone about…_this_, but only if –" She breaks off and squeaks as Malfoy's hand slams into her shoulder and pins her back against the door, his face jammed up close to hers again.

"But only if _what,_ Granger? But only if _what?_ Are you seriously trying to blackmail me? Because I swear to Merlin, I will make you fucking _regret_ _it_." His voice is snarling and ferocious and his bloodshot eyes are hard, and Hermione is suddenly actually _frightened_ of him as he snaps out those last two words. Her hand slips back down into her inside robe pocket, finding it at last, and closes around the butt of her wand.

"Oh shut up, Malfoy," she snaps, as though utterly fed up with him instead of just a little bit scared. "Merlin, you're a git. I was _going to say_, but only if I don't catch you in here again, because you're not supposed to be using the prefects' bathroom, and I'll have to report you if I see you doing it again."

He blinks those grey eyes and straightens, looking down at her in confusion. "Oh." He wipes his eyes again and steps back, turning his face away, his breath coming normally now, as though he's finally calming down. "Oh."

Hermione cocks her head to the side and tries to catch his eye, and says without thinking again, "Are you, um, all right?" Because he was crying and so upset and she's never seen him like this before, and whether he's Malfoy the git or not, there's something about seeing the utter misery of another human being that makes Hermione want to reach out. He stares at her in disbelief, and a snarky, mean retort seems to hover on his lips, before he swallows and shakes his head.

"No. No I'm not, Granger," Malfoy says simply. There's a sarcastic little twist to his mouth. "I would think that would be obvious."

His simple honesty rocks Hermione to the core, and she just gapes at him for a moment, before snapping her mouth shut and then asking what social convention says she is supposed to ask next. "Do you want to talk about it?" she inquires in a small voice, and Malfoy gives her a _look_ that is more exasperated than disgusted.

"No. No I don't. Now can you _move_, or are you determined to trap me in here with you while you torture me by asking me about my feelings, and using me to stroke your do-gooder ego?" He arches an eyebrow at her and his expression is superior and scathing despite his still rather teary looking state, and Hermione feels like an idiot. She shuffles out of the way of the door, and stares at him speechlessly as Malfoy stalks up to it, jerks the bolt back and the door open. And then he pauses and facing the corridor, with his head bowed, he says something very low under his breath, and then strides out, slamming the door behind him. Hermione gulps and blinks, and then steps forward to bolt the door again, wandering absently to the enormous bathing pool, feeling as though she is in shock.

She strips and sinks into the water – she may as well enjoy her bath, and frankly, she needs to unwind even more after _that._ Hermione spends the next hour soaking in the steamy hot water and running over and over the confrontation in her mind until it seems to have lost all meaning, or gained meanings that really aren't there; and Malfoy's face as he looked up at her that first moment is emblazoned in her mind. What was he crying about? What is making him so miserable that he's acting the way he is, and crying in the bathroom? _Is _it the strain of being a Death Eater, maybe? And had she just hallucinated what he'd mumbled when he'd paused on the threshold, or had Draco Malfoy really said _'thank you'_ to her?

Hermione takes a deep breath and slides beneath the surface of the water, her hair fanning out around her, trying to clear her mind and forget about it all for now.

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**Author's Note:** So, what do _you_ think is going on with Draco? Pretty please _review_ and let me know if you like it so far :)


	2. Part Two

**Author's Note:** Thank you, wonderful reviewers! I love your feedback, and I'm so pleased you're puzzled as to what is going on with Draco!This chapter, the plot thickens…

(Note: The name 'Eloweyen' is pronounced 'Aloe-way-YEN' and is made up but means 'marsh flower' in my head.)

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**2.**

**Thursday 6****th**** February, 1997**

Hermione hasn't told anyone about what happened in the prefects' bathroom; she knows that Harry would want to know about the odd occurrence, but she had promised Malfoy she wouldn't tell. So she doesn't. Instead she has been watching him like a hawk in all of their shared classes, and in the Great Hall at mealtimes. Malfoy seems thinner and more stressed with each passing day, and sits at the very end of the Slytherin table, segregating himself from everyone he used to spend time with, and Hermione notices Blaise Zabini keeps quietly taunting him – over what, she doesn't know. But as far as Hermione can gather from her observations, whenever other Slytherins try to find out what Zabini is taunting Malfoy about, Zabini reluctantly refuses to tell them.

Harry still insists that Malfoy is a Death Eater, and Hermione doesn't try to dissuade him from that idea anymore. Nothing untoward has happened since Katie Bell was cursed though, and so Hermione can't help thinking that Harry is wrong. If Malfoy was a Death Eater, wouldn't there be more troubling incidents happening? But instead the school is peaceful, in a slow lull, and Hermione itches under the heavy slowness of it. It is like the eye of the storm, and sometimes she feels she is chafing for the wild chaos of the storm itself – anything but this weighted stillness. She wishes she had more to occupy her, but apart from schoolwork and Malfoy, Hermione has very little to distract her from the daily grind.

She's had very little to do with Ron lately because he keeps snogging Lavender Brown constantly in public, and Hermione is just sick and tired of it. And Harry is busy trying to get Slughorn's memory, but failing, and is following Malfoy even more obsessively than Hermione. Between the two of them, they must be watching him near constantly, but it curtails them spending time together, unfortunately – and he's not the best company even when they do hang out. Apart from the two boys, Hermione has very few friends – in fact she really has no _friends_, just good acquaintances. Hermione sighs as she pulls herself out of her thoughts and notes the time – her free period is nearly up, and she has been so lost in thought that she's barely accomplished anything.

She shuts her library book and stands, clearing her parchments off the desk and stuffing them into her bag along with her quill and ink well. She has Ancient Runes in ten minutes, and she doesn't want to be late for class. Hermione slings her bag onto her back and gathers up the books she has been supposed to be referring to, to re-shelve them neatly – Madam Pince _hates_ it when students are lazy with re-shelving. Hermione hurries along the aisles, putting the books back in their proper places. She's up on the third step of a ladder putting one dusty old tome back, when she overhears Malfoy's angry voice hissing over the air.

"Leave me the _fuck _alone, Blaise."

"Oh, come on Draco. Tell me how much you _love_–"

"Shut the fuck up! Shit, what do you want from me, Zabini? You've got Pansy – and you're fucking welcome to the bitch, by the –"

"Don't talk about my girlfriend that way, Malfoy!" Blaise doesn't sound very upset though; he sounds like he's having fun toying with Malfoy, and Hermione catches her breath so as not to be discovered as their lowered voices draw nearer. Her heart is beating a little faster, and her palms start to sweat with nervousness. She's not doing anything wrong by listening; if they choose to have private conversations in public places, she can hardly help overhearing, can she?

"Oh shut up, Blaise. The only reason you're so bloody popular now is…"

"Because you're not?"

"I swear to Merlin –"

"You've lost it, Draco, and you aren't getting it back. You _and _your father. You're just lucky Pansy retains enough affection for you – Salazar knows why – to have made me swear not to tell anyone about what you're doing."

Hermione's eyes widen. What Malfoy's doing? That doesn't sound good. That sounds like Harry might even be right. But she doesn't hear anything more, because Malfoy suddenly hisses a hex, furious and icy, and Blaise Zabini makes a funny choking sound. Malfoy laughs coldly, and then footsteps are thudding towards Hermione. She freezes on the ladder as Zabini runs toward her with his hand to his mouth, but he doesn't even notice her. He notices her so little, in fact, that in his stumbling headlong run his shoulder thumps into Hermione's hip, knocking her backwards. He disappears down the aisle, running for the library's exit as Hermione's arms windmill frantically and uselessly.

She cries out in fright as she goes over backwards, trying to save herself by flinging her hands out behind her and taking the brunt of her weight awkwardly on her hands. Three steps up doesn't seem that high, until you fall from it, Hermione thinks disconnectedly as a yelp breaks from her lips. A shooting pain flares from her left wrist to her elbow, and she's sure she's broken it, curling forward and cradling it to her chest protectively, whimpering. Her tailbone hurts right up her spine, and her wrist is so sore – she can't move her fingers, the pain is too great, and tears are overflowing her eyes; not from any real emotional distress, but from the sudden shock of the fall and the pain.

Footsteps hurry towards her, but instead of Madam Pince's stern, worried face appearing around the corner, it is Malfoy's. Hermione blinks at him through her tears; he stands at the end of the aisle with his wand in hand, and he looks all choked with anger, his cracked-glass grey eyes narrowed. The anger retreats when he sees her, his face goes carefully blank, and for a moment they stare at each other silently, caught in what feels like a frozen second of time, neither knowing what to do, or say, or even feel. Hermione expects for him to turn and walk away when the moment breaks, but instead he slides his wand neatly inside his sleeve and strides forward, towards her.

"What happened?" His voice is cold and stiff, and his eyes dart about, looking everywhere but at Hermione's face. _She_ can't tear her eyes from him, her brows all scrunched down with confusion at Malfoy's question. He gives her an impatient look, and she licks dry lips. "Z – Zabini came tearing past and knocked me off the ladder."

Malfoy eyes Hermione carefully, assessing her, and she realises he knows that she overheard at least some of his conversation with Zabini. He is pale and grim and suspicious, and filled with a bone-deep fear that radiates off him, and once more Hermione feels a little spark of sympathy for the Slytherin. He stares down at her silently and she doesn't know if he's contemplating threatening her or begging her, but she doesn't let it get that far – an impulsive split second decision motivated by pity. And maybe just a little fear, because what she heard could be very _important_, and if he really was a Death Eater, what lengths might Malfoy go to, in order to keep his secrets?

"I didn't hear anything." Hermione blinks at him, her tear-filled eyes fixed to his, totally sincere, and they both know she heard at least a _little_ – her very denial is proof of that. "Honestly," she says, smiling through the throb of her wrist. "I was just re-shelving some books I'd been using to do research for an essay, and then Blaise Zabini comes charging past like a maniac and knocks me right off the ladder. Do you have any idea what on earth his problem was? Because he seemed rather upset."

Malfoy stares at her for a frozen moment and then swallows, shifts on his feet, the moment broken, a little nod the only evidence he heard her at all. He moves towards her then and Hermione can't help a flinch as he bends over her. The little lines of strain around his eyes tighten at her flinch, but he just silently wraps his hand around her upper arm and pulls her to her feet. Shock rolls through her, only derailed by the pain as the movement jolts her arm.

"What's wrong? He asks, his voice flat and dull, dropping her arm like a hot coal but still standing very close; so close that she is able to just reach out and sweep her thumb gently over the dark bruised stains beneath his eyes – if she wants to. Her arm is cradling her injured wrist to her chest though, and besides, that would be just utterly mad and entirely undesirable. Malfoy just looks so _tired_, as though he doesn't even remember what sleep is, it's been so long since he's had any.

"I – I think I broke my wrist." Hermione steadies herself on her feet and lets out a whimper of pain as she puts her weight on her right foot. She looks up at Malfoy ruefully, still reeling from the fact that he helped her up, and entirely uneasy with the lack of space between them that he seems unaware of. "And I may possibly have twisted my ankle, too."

Malfoy's eyes are stony and unreadable, but from the way his mouth twitches and curls, Hermione thinks he is warring with something. She stands waiting silently, holding onto a bookcase to steady herself. She wants to see what he will do next, and she's in no hurry to start the long hobble to the infirmary. Several seconds pass, each one seeming to take forever, and then Malfoy makes a harsh, guttural sound of frustration.

"Fuck. All right, Granger. Let's go." Malfoy holds out his arm to her stiffly, and she stares at it in bewilderment. "Come on," he orders impatiently, angrily, frowning at Hermione.

"What…?" Her brow is furrowed and she thinks she must be misunderstanding Malfoy somehow. He looks away from her, staring stonily past her head as he speaks. "Do you want some help to the fucking infirmary or not, Granger?"

"Y-yes. That would be…good. Thank you." She stares at him confused, lips parted and brain feeling rather fogged as Malfoy gingerly puts his arm around Hermione's waist. The sensation is a physical shock and Hermione swallows hard and puts her hand on his shoulder, leaning on him, his arm helping hold her up. Malfoy is pressed hard against her, no personal space between them at all, and he is shockingly warm, like a radiator putting out heat. He is wearing cologne that smells like dark woods and spices and the scent that rises off wet river stones in the sun, with the faintest hint of something pleasant and musky that can only be his natural scent. Hermione's stomach curls and twists and a feverish shiver runs over her.

They start to walk, she limping and leaning heavily on Malfoy, and his arm tight around her waist, a hot, wiry brand pressing into her through her robe and uniform beneath. They find an awkward sort of rhythm, although both of them stay stiff and uncomfortable, and at the door to the library, Malfoy casts her a dark glance.

"If anyone asks, Madam Pince ordered me to help you, at pain of death."

Hermione nods, and a smile twitches at her lips. "Of course."

"And if we come across any of your little friends, they can help you the rest of the way."

"Of course," Hermione says again, and now she is smiling wider and Malfoy is looking at her in annoyed exasperation and confusion, no doubt wondering what she finds so funny. "Thank you, Malfoy," she says quietly, and he grunts dismissively and scowls, beginning to walk again; his arm holding her up securely, his shoulder thin and hot beneath her tight grip. They meet no one Hermione is friendly with on the way to the infirmary, and garner only a few odd looks. Neither of them says a single word, and he leaves her at the door with a sharp nod. Hermione thanks Malfoy as he strides away, but he doesn't acknowledge her.

**Friday 14****th**** February, 1997**

It is St Valentine's Day and Hermione is in the library by herself, having received none of the red roses, sumptuous sweets, or romantic cards that seem to have taken over Hogwarts today. So she has come here, to the musty smell of books and the enveloping silence, to wallow in miserable self pity. Ron is off snogging Lavender, and Harry seemed about as miserable as Hermione and not in the mood for company when she distracted him from his potions book to ask him about doing something together this afternoon. He is probably still absorbed in his stupid, dangerous potions book right now, and Hermione frowns to herself as she moves through the aisles to the small wizarding fiction section of the library.

She plucks a book from the shelf that she has wanted to read for a while – a romantic adventure tale about a young disadvantaged witch's struggle to make something of herself, and her difficult romance with a young wizard from a well-off family – and heads for the little nook further back in this section that has several comfortable armchairs. She freezes when she reaches the nook and sees a white blonde head, and long legs stretched out; Malfoy is slouched in one of the three armchairs. Hermione debates whether to turn around and leave quietly, but he looks up and pierces her with those pale grey eyes, and his whole body stiffens, his mouth tightens. Somehow, that makes her decision for her.

Hermione smiles very faintly and nods at him, and curls up in one of the two free armchairs and opens her book. She half expects him to go, and she can feel his eyes on her although she doesn't look up. She begins to read:

'_The sun was barely peeking above the tree tops as Eloweyen hurried out of the small house, calling goodbye to her mother, snatching up her cloak, and slamming the door behind her with a bang and a rattle. It was a five mile walk in to the nearest village – being Squibs, neither of Eloweyen's parents could apparate, and although she was a witch, at just gone fourteen Eloweyen had not yet learnt the skill of disapparation. She felt her parents' coin clinking heavy in the little pouch at her belt and repeated to herself the list of things her mother had asked her to get in the village. Green thread, sunshine yellow ribbon, a sickle bag of sugar, feed for the laying hens, a new knife blade for her father, and three balls of lambs' wool yarn. Eloweyen cut across the meadow their little wooden house was centred in, toward the forest edge, and with her hand clutched tight around her wand she entered the dim realm where the light filtered green through the trees.'_

Malfoy does not leave, and by the time Hermione has finished the page, she no longer feels his gaze on her. She peeks up at the end of the first chapter and sees he is absorbed in his own book, although he seems to feel her eyes on him because he looks up and for a moment their eyes lock. She looks away first, and her breath is tight and quick in her throat, her pulse racing, and she doesn't know why. They stay there most of the afternoon, in a strangely companionable silence that is only broken by the rasp of pages turning, the quiet clearing of throats, or the rustle of clothing as they shift on their chairs. There is an odd serenity to it, and Hermione's misery is strangely eased by Malfoy's quiet presence.

Hermione has half-finished the book by the time she gets up to leave, unselfconsciously stretching the kinks and stiffness out of her body before she even remembers Malfoy is there. She looks up and he is watching her over his book, and not trying to hide that fact. She licks her lips and searches for something to say before she goes, because the silence is heavy and strange and she doesn't like it. She needs to say something to break the silence, but it is difficult to think of what to say after they've ignored each other this entire time, without so much as a 'hello' when she had first come across him in the nook. It would be odd to say goodbye, without having said hello – wouldn't it? Hermione's mind goes blank.

She panics quietly and blinks, clears her throat, shifts her tight grip on her book, and says, "Happy Valentine's Day, Malfoy."

Malfoy's face goes blank with shock, his grey eyes widening and his lips parting, his book sinking to his lap as he _stares_ at her, as though she has just smacked him in the head with her book, or hit him with a c_onfundus._ Hermione could kick herself for being such an idiot, and saying such a _stupid_ thing. She can't believe it. She doesn't even know _why_ she said it. Her cheeks flame up and she drags her eyes away from Malfoy's stunned face, turning and fleeing at a near-run, her steps quick and her blood pounding in her ears as she clutches her book to her chest. She hears him call her name after her, "Granger – _Granger_," in an odd, strangled kind of tone, but she ignores him, mortification flooding over her in waves. She wends a hurried power-walking pace through the aisles, clutching the book to her chest and berating herself.

"Happy Valentine's Day, Malfoy," she repeats in a horrified mutter to herself, in complete disbelief at her own idiocy. What on _earth_ is wrong with her? What prompted her to say something like _that_ to Draco Malfoy, of all people? Saying it to nearly anyone else would have been fine – just friendliness – but she is _not _supposed to be friendly with Draco Malfoy. Hermione is so flustered she nearly forgets to check out the book, and Madam Pince has to call her back with a sharp word. The librarian gives Hermione a very funny glance, so she can only imagine she looks as terrible and panicky as she feels. She rushes out of the library feeling as though she is fleeing Death Eaters, only just stopping herself from running.

She is desperate to get away in case Malfoy comes after her, and corners her, and says her name in that bewildered, strangled tone again, which had made her stomach do that funny little twist that made her feel nauseous and frightened and breathless all at once. She doesn't know why it did that. She doesn't know _why._ It doesn't make any sense. Hermione doesn't relax until she is in the Gryffindor common room, and even then she is still sweaty and flustered for the next few hours, her heart beating like a bird's wings in the cage of her chest. She doesn't know what is happening, but she has a very strong feeling that _something_ is happening, and she's very frightened as to what it might mean.

**Tuesday 18****th**** March, 1997**

Malfoy is using the Room of Requirement – they're sure of it. Harry tried to get into the Room yesterday, but failed, and now here Hermione is, staring at the blank wall where the entrance to the Room is and chewing on her thumb nail nervously. She's not sure what she's doing, or why she thinks she might succeed where Harry failed, but at any rate she's here now, and she may as well try her plan. Hermione thinks that perhaps Malfoy was _inside _the Room while Harry was trying to get in, and maybe that was why it hadn't worked. She knows for a fact that he is not in there now – she passed him in the corridor not two minutes ago, and suspects he was coming from the Room.

He'd had a hectic flush to his cheeks and his grey eyes had been bright and feverish as he'd walked past her, and Hermione thinks that she had seen fear on his face too, badly disguised. She had smiled at him involuntarily, like an idiot, and his eyes had widened and he'd ducked his head, and his white blonde hair had fallen over his eyes as he'd shoved his hands in his pockets and hurried past. Not a cruel word has fallen from his lips in weeks, nor has he done anything unkind to Hermione. In fact, several days ago, she had caught Malfoy watching her over breakfast in the Great Hall, a puzzled expression on his thin, pointed features, and when she had smiled at him, for a brief second a return smile had appeared on his own lips.

She wonders as she stares at the blank wall, what it is that Malfoy does in there. Whether, as Harry believed, it is a nefarious scheme, or whether it is perhaps just a refuge from the world. Hermione isn't sure what she believes. She isn't sure what she _wants_ to believe. She steps forward to stand right in front of the patch of wall and checks the corridor is clear – it is. There is no one here but her. She licks her lips and says, "I want to go into the place you become for Draco Malfoy." Her voice is quiet but steady. "I want to see what Draco Malfoy does. I want you to become what you become for Draco Malfoy." Her voice cracks a little bit as she tries, "I want to see who Draco Malfoy is, in here." Hermione doesn't want it to be a nefarious scheme. She isn't sure why, but she desperately wants it to not be anything evil.

Just as she thinks that, the doors appear and she gasps and a rush of victory seizes her. Her heart pounds and her breath comes shallow as she nips inside before any other students come along to see her. She looks around in bewilderment to see the Room is _filled_ with junk. Old furniture, what looks like students' belongings – all sorts of things, all crammed in. She looks around, and her eye is caught by a full-length mirror that, unlike the other mirrors about, is clear of any dust. It stands by an old ornate cabinet that looks very similar to the one in Borgin and Burke's, if not identical. She examines the cabinet first, and there beneath it, she sees a bit of black cloth sticking out. It is a Hogwarts uniform skirt, and tucked inside that, a pair of lacy silk French knickers, that Hermione picks up on the end of her wand and peers at.

She frowns. They are obviously new and well-cared for, not items that have been in here for any length of time, and they are stuffed beneath the cabinet as if to hide them. What on earth do they have to do with anything though? And then Hermione remembers the witch swathed in her robes that had gone past Hermione not a minute before she had come across Malfoy. She drops the knickers and pokes them and the skirt back beneath the cabinet, red with embarrassment and frowning to herself. It is _possible_ that Malfoy is having secret assignations with the blonde witch Hermione had seen, and beneath her robes the girl had been bottom-half naked. Like some kind of _sex game_. Hermione's nose wrinkles up at that, and she shudders, uncomfortable with the idea, although she doesn't know why, exactly.

Maybe it unsettles her because of the only real problem with that theory – that the witch had only seemed to be a third year. That fact alone might explain why Malfoy is trying to hide the relationship, because _ew_, it is just wrong and horrible that Malfoy might be seeing a third year, and yet is quite possibly something that he would do – at least in Ron and Harry's estimation. But Hermione isn't so sure, especially not with the way he's been acting lately. He actually doesn't seem…so bad. And to be carrying on with a third year would just be…entirely inappropriate and unethical. But the skirt and French knickers are definitely real, and they must have some explanation – Hermione furrows her brow, curls her lip in distaste, and fishes the clothing back out from under the cabinet, gingerly checking for any name labels or other clues. Nothing. She returns the skirt and peach silk knickers to beneath the cabinet, making sure they are arranged as closely as possible to how she had found them.

She opens the cabinet next, cautiously. It is bare and empty inside, save for the corpse of a dead mouse, the little limp body looking relatively fresh. Hermione eyes it nervously and estimates it has been dead a couple of days at most. The cabinet is empty of cobwebs, and the hinges are freshly oiled, the little mouse looks like a pet shop mouse, rather than a wild one. Hermione casts a few revealing and diagnosing spells on the mouse, which show it died when its internal organs were torn free and…replaced wrongly? That makes no sense. And is rather disgusting. Why would anyone do that to a _mouse?_ Has _Malfoy _done it? Hermione quietly closes the cabinet and looks around the area surrounding the cabinet. But the clean mirror seems to be just a mirror, and there is nothing else that seems disturbed – everything else is coated in varying layers of dust and cobwebs.

Hermione leaves quickly, her mind swimming. A Hufflepuff tie, a uniform skirt, a dead mouse in a cabinet, knickers, and a blonde – probably third year – witch. These are her clues. Also, she thinks, as she slips out of the Room and heads down the corridor, there are the clues of Draco's general strange behaviour, including his apparent strain, and his unusual civility to Hermione. What do all these things add up to? Hermione can think of at least one theory – that he is conducting a secret affair with a third year, which _might _explain the knickers, skirt and tie, and possibly even Malfoy's general appearance lately…but it doesn't explain his behaviour towards Hermione, nor the mouse in the cabinet. And Hermione is convinced that cabinet and the mouse within it are involved somehow.

Why else would Draco have gone to Borgin and Burke's? But how do the mouse and the cabinet connect up with the tie, knickers, skirt, and the possible involvement of the girl? Hermione frowns to herself as she strolls back to the Gryffindor common room, lost in thought. She debates telling Harry, but he is lost in his own thoughts, and she doesn't feel right telling him; not without thinking about it first, anyway. Instead Hermione spends the rest of the day with her book propped on her lap, unread, her brow furrowed in thought. She comes no closer to an answer though – her only options are to either forget about it, tell Harry and see what he thinks, or keep following Malfoy, and hope to catch him in the act, whatever that might be.

Hermione goes down to dinner in a daze, and sees Malfoy pale and strained, hunched at the end of the Slytherin table by himself, picking at his food. Her eyes keep drifting over to him, so she isn't surprised when their gazes meet, but she _is_ surprised by the queasy tension that erupts in her belly, a sensation she can find no name for. It isn't exactly unpleasant, but neither is it welcome. It makes her uneasy. His grey eyes are soft on her from across the Hall – soft and puzzled, with no trace of hatred, and Hermione knows then that she cannot tell Harry about what she has found, but neither will her curiosity let her leave the matter unexplored. Hermione will just have to follow Malfoy, and try to get into the Room while he is inside.

She smiles at Malfoy uneasily, the faintest curve of her mouth, and he blinks at her and his lips flicker before he schools his face to stony stillness and turns his eyes back to his untouched dinner.

**# # # # # #**

**Author's Note: **So, any ideas what's going on yet? Any theories? This story is only _loosely_ following canon – using it as a guideline rather than as word of god – so technically it _could_ be anything.

**Please review!**


	3. Part Three

**Author's Notes: **First off, sorry updates have been, well, non-existent. Life has been fraught the past few weeks, and on top of that, my elderly grandfather died just a few days ago, and my computer monitor died yesterday. So…updates won't be coming very quickly for a wee while, I'm afraid. Anyway, thank you so much to everyone who has reviewed! This chapter, the _mystery_ is revealed…

**3.**

**Tuesday 1****st**** April, 1997**

Hermione is severely glad that so far, she has managed to avoid being caught in any of the pranks that have taken over Hogwarts today. She suspects that everyone knows she would _not_ react well to having some ridiculous joke played on her – she is just relieved Fred and George are no longer at Hogwarts, because she knows they wouldn't be afraid of her wrath. As it is, dinner has just concluded and she is still blissfully hex, jinx, or good old-fashioned Muggle-style prank free. She checks the Marauder's Map again once she gets out of the Great Hall, and sees that Malfoy has now disappeared off it. He must be in the Room then – good.

As she heads briskly toward the seventh floor, a feminine voice calls her name and she sighs and stops in her tracks. Luna is hurrying up the stairs towards Hermione, a wide smile on her face, and her long blonde hair replaced with long-stemmed tiny lilies. "Hello, Hermione. Lovely evening isn't it?" the younger witch greets Hermione, her tone cheerfully dreamy as always. Hermione swears to herself and then smiles back at Luna – she wants to get to the Room before Malfoy leaves, and not be held up by small-talk. Today might be the day she finally manages to catch Malfoy in the act, whatever it is he's doing. But she can't just brush Luna off, either.

"I suppose so. But Luna, who on earth did that to your _hair?_"

"Oh, I did," Luna says happily as the two girls start walking again, heading up the stairs side-by-side. "I thought that if people thought I'd already had a joke played on me, they'd leave me alone." It's actually quite a clever idea, and reminds Hermione why the odd girl is in Ravenclaw. Luna brushes a hand through the thin green stems sprouting from her head, admiring the tiny lilies that dangle at the ends. "It's quite pretty, don't you think?"

Hermione laughs softly to herself; she thinks it looks exceedingly strange, but doesn't say so, just comments neutrally, "It's a very good idea, Luna," because it is. Better to have something odd happen to you that you chose, rather than be like Dean who has gone to the infirmary because his eyes refuse to un-cross, or Ron who spent an hour this morning trapped in the boys' bathroom when someone glued him to the toilet, or Ginny who is walking around with purple hair and beard – the youngest Weasley told Hermione she rather likes the hair, but the beard is _not _appreciated.

Luna peels off from Hermione with a wave, and older witch continues up the stairs taking them two at a time, heading for the seventh floor. She has borrowed the Map with Harry and Ron's knowledge, telling them she wants to keep trying to find out what Malfoy is doing – which gets their full blessing, of course – and when he disappeared out of the Great Hall immediately after dinner, she checked it and saw him heading towards the seventh floor, not the dungeons. And now, he is apparently in the Room, doing whatever it is that involves a cabinet, dead mouse, a tie, knickers and a skirt. She chews on her lip, nervous. She has also borrowed the invisibility cloak from Harry, and hopes she can _quietly_ gain access to the Room and spy on Malfoy from beneath the cloak, with him being none the wiser.

It takes her ten minutes to persuade the Room to open a small door for her to creep through under the cloak, and when she gets inside she sees past heaped piles of furniture and other oddments that Malfoy hasn't noticed the small door opening and closing silently. She watches him through a gap in the furniture, able to see his blonde head and shoulders. He is looking pale and worried, muttering under his breath. She moves enough that she can see him open the cabinet and remove a…dead bird? Hermione's heart throbs in her chest and her breath comes shallow and fast. She moves a little closer, and through a heap of precariously stacked chairs, can see his hand closed around a live bird, which he thrusts into the cabinet and shuts the door on, still muttering beneath his breath, sounding terrified and desperate.

He waits silently, and then after a few moments, opens the door again, and moans in despair, pulling out the same bird he'd put in there, which now appears dead, as far as Hermione can tell from her vantage point. He swears and kicks the cabinet and then sinks out of view, his face contorting. Hermione holds her breath as the sounds of wretched sobs fill the Room; Malfoy is crying as though his heart is going to break, and her own heart cannot help but wrench for him. Hermione doesn't like to see anyone suffer, not even Malfoy. Especially not with the way he has been acting lately; so civil, and unlike his usual self. She crouches down beneath the cloak and tries to block out the sound of his pitiful sobs, and focus on what on earth he might be trying to do with the cabinet.

Hermione loses herself in thought as she racks her brain for ideas, and her legs are stiff and sore from crouching when a different sound jerks her out of her own head. A whimper. She berates herself for letting her mind wander like that – she shouldn't be so in attentive. All right, she had the invisibility cloak to keep her from being discovered, but she still shouldn't let her guard down like that. Another muffled whimper is carried on the musty air, and Hermione's face goes hot. What…? She hears Malfoy curse aloud, and then his voice mutters, "Stupid Hufflepuff _bitch_. Worthless piece of fucking _scum_."

Hermione gasps and then claps a hand over her mouth, sneaking around the furniture quietly as possible. Does he have a girl in here? Is it that third year she saw? Is he…is he hurting her? Hermione's blood runs cold and she realises that she really doesn't want to believe that of Malfoy. Somehow her loathing of him has…vanished, and she's not sure why or when it is has happened, but she doesn't hate him anymore, not even a little. Some of the old feelings rush back in though, as she thinks of Malfoy hurting a poor third year Hufflepuff girl, taking out his bigoted hatred on her. She circles around behind piles of furniture, no longer able to see him from her previous vantage, her blood boiling as she though of Malfoy abusing another student like that. It's unbelievable, and if true, utterly awful and she will see him expelled for it, the _bastard_.

She moves out into the open nervously, and then she sees him. Malfoy is leaning back against an old ornate bookcase, staring at himself in the mirror. Hermione's eyes go round and she clamps her hand over her mouth to muffle the horrified gasp that breaks her lips. For a moment she is certain it is some twisted kind of April Fools joke, but it can't be. Oh Merlin. _Draco Malfoy_ is fallen back against the bookcase _in a girl's uniform with the Hufflepuff tie on_, staring at himself in the mirror, his face a mask of pure loathing and his lips muttering insults and moaning pleasure, _with the skirt rucked up and peach silk knickers pushed down, one hand fisted around his p-p-penis._ Hermione nearly chokes on her own saliva, hands over her mouth, silently gibbering in her head, her cheeks so hot she feels like she's going to spontaneously combust. She tears her eyes away from the sight of him, but then unwillingly, inexorably, her gaze is pulled back.

His head is thrown back against the bookcase; hair dishevelled, cheeks pink with arousal, eyes slitted and glazed, teeth denting into his full bottom lip. His breath comes in little hitches and gasps as he mutters terrible, horrible things to himself, and Hermione is…aroused. She is undeniably, sickeningly, _horrifyingly _aroused by the sight of Malfoy wanking in girl's clothes and mocking himself cruelly. She cannot deny it, much as she longs to. The sight sets off an unwelcome throbbing twinge between the flesh between her legs, and her stomach curls and twists, her heart jitters in her chest. The flush in her cheeks, however, is all embarrassment. His penis – oh god, oh _Merlin_, Hermione is staring at Malfoy's _penis_ – seems disconcertingly large from here, and his hand pumps up and down it in fierce, small movements, his hips snapping out as he stares into the mirror.

She wants to keep watching. She tells herself it is like a train wreck – so terrible one can't tear their eyes away, but that is a lie. There is something horribly, perversely attractive about Malfoy in this moment, although the things he's saying – what he's wearing makes Hermione want to cringe with sympathetic embarrassment. Oh _Merlin_. Hermione moans quietly to herself in horror. She wishes desperately that she had never come up here. That she had never paid any attention to Malfoy. His face is taut with strain, and he is gasping now, glazed and flushed with arousal, and Hermione is still _watching_. Oh this is so wrong, in so many ways.

But she cannot seem to look away – she is still in shock, stunned senseless by the scene in front of her. Malfoy's oxford shirt – his own, not a girl's – is unbuttoned, exposing an expanse of pale, smooth skin, his stomach concave – he looks like a greyhound, he is so thin, his ribs clearly visible beneath his flesh, his nipples a pale pink. Hermione gulps. The yellow and black Hufflepuff tie is knotted loosely around his neck, his feet are bare, his long legs leanly muscled and smattered with pale hair. He is unavoidably an attractive specimen if a trifle thin, and he is not half as ferrety as he used to be. But then her eyes reach Malfoy's skirt…the knickers, his _penis_…when Hermione's gaze casts over those, she loses all ability to think coherently, and begins silently gibbering again. She thinks she may start hyperventilating in a moment.

Malfoy is utterly vulnerable in this moment, all barriers down, and the self-loathing on his thin features is painful to see; it makes Hermione's heart hurt for him. In this moment, thinking himself completely alone, Malfoy is showing his true face and it is pain, shame, and a hungry, wild sort of greed. Hermione stands transfixed beneath the protective draping shelter of the cloak for a long moment, numbed and mind blanked by the enormity of what she sees. And then she realises belatedly what she is doing; how she is violating Malfoy with this intrusion, and she is horrified and disgusted by herself. _Oh god. _Hermione's brain snaps back into some semblance of working order, and she turns to flee in a daze.

In her haste to get away, Hermione trips over the curled edge of an old rug, and without thinking she grabs at a hatstand to regain her balance, and only succeeds in bringing it down with her. With an undignified, _loud_ grunt of surprise, Hermione goes crashing to her face on the floor with the hatstand on top of her. She freezes, praying to the gods of fortune and luck that the cloak hasn't come off her and Malfoy will just assume the hatstand falling was not caused by a person but a natural slippage of furniture. If so, she can just lie here until he eventually leaves. Hermione has very little hopes on that score, though. Malfoy is not an idiot. Merlin, what a _mess._ She hears Malfoy make a horrified, choking sound as she prays to herself, and the sound of clothing moving. He must be changing, she thinks, and wonders what her chances are of getting to the door before Malfoy changes and finds her.

But within seconds – he must have used magic to change so quickly – his footsteps are running towards her. Oh no. Oh no. Oh _no._ He's going to murder her. He's going to bloody murder her and stuff _her_ body in that mysterious cabinet. Or something. The hatstand is lifted off her body and flung aside, and Hermione realises she is done for and rolls over quick as lightning, flinging off the cloak, her hand darting for her wand. But Malfoy's wand is already drawn, and he jabs it into her throat, staying her movements. And then he realises that it is _her_, and his features twist and fall with something that looks frighteningly like…betrayal? Horror? Despair? Fear? All of them, and more, as though he is ashamed she found him, as though he is disappointed she would spy on him. As though…

"Granger," he says in a husky voice that is shaking with rage, and Hermione whimpers, and shuts her eyes against him. But a hand grabs her by the shirt front and hauls her up, popping several buttons off her shirt, and her eyes fly open again, her hands flailing out. Malfoy shoves her up against a desk, and he is in trousers now, the tie gone, but his shirt is unbuttoned still and his feet still bare. His fringe flops forward into his eyes as he glares down at her, hand still fisted around her shirt, and his face is flushed and his eyes narrowed, the vein at his temple is pulsing. He shakes her like a dog shakes a rabbit in its jaws, and she gasps and whimpers again and the breath rattles out of her. He is so angry, but then so would she be, if he'd caught her doing the same sort of thing she'd…

"I'm sorry. I didn't know," she says pathetically, and his face shapes itself with sneering disgust. "Of _course_ you didn't know! That was the fucking _point_ Granger. Shit. _Shit_. Fucking _shit._" His eyes are flicking about, he is thinking hard, and Hermione doesn't know what he plans to do, and that scares her – and being scared makes her angry. "Let me go, Malfoy," she snaps and shoves at him, and he stumbles back half a step and then pushes forward again, using his body weight to press her against the desk. She fights him for a moment, but doesn't succeed in getting free, only succeeds in twisting against him in a way that reveals he is still erect, and a choked inhale rips through her, and for a moment their eyes connect. Malfoy licks his lips and his hips press outward slightly, into her lower belly, and his erection juts into her and Hermione gasps again. She feels light-headed, and frightened, and there is a pulsing heat between her legs that she is utterly confused and horrified by, but cannot deny.

"I won't tell anyone," she says breathlessly, as his cracked-glass grey eyes search over her face and settle on her lips. He clears his throat, and swallows, adam's apple bobbing. "How much did you see, Granger?"

She finds herself incapable of lying. "The dead bird," she says, her voice faint and vague. "The dead bird and the live one, and how it died, and you – the – _well_…"

"And you won't tell?" he asks scathingly, not believing her for a moment, and she can't blame him. Hermione blinks, lashes fluttering erratically, heart going like a freight train, his penis still erect and still digging into her, and she squirms with a perverse mix of want and revulsion, shoves at him but he is immoveable.

"I – I won't tell about your…" It is impossible to say. She stares at Malfoy helplessly, and he nods sharply, his mouth and jaw tightening. "About my repulsive, twisted predilections?"

"I believe Muggles mostly classify it as _harmless kink_, not repulsive predilections, Malfoy," Hermione says pertly, and remembers very sharply the loathing in him, the shame that still hovers there no matter how much he tries to hide it, and adds brusquely, "And there's absolutely nothing wrong with it."

"Oh, really, Granger? Well, the rest of the wizarding world doesn't agree with you, and I don't trust you to keep your big mouth shut when it's my reputation on the line. And I can't let you go about telling anyone about the cabinet, anyway."

She shoves at him ineffectively, and he jabs his wand against the side of her neck, his other hand still fisted in her shirt, his penis _still_ erect. Hermione would wonder about the impressive single-mindedness of teenage boys and their hormones, except she is still aroused too, in a confused, frightened, muddled sort of way. A third of her brain is still gibbering at her, another third is frightened and angry, and the last third wants to kiss those full lips just inches from her. Hermione's hands grip his shoulders and she pictures him again, his head fallen back and his breath hitching and shuddering, and her fingers climb their way up to his hair, threading through the fine white blonde locks tenderly while Malfoy stares at her in frozen shock.

She is utterly mad. She has gone around the bend. She has completely lost it. She needs to be shipped off to St Mungo's, post-haste.

Malfoy bends his head down, towards Hermione, and she tilts her face up, and when their lips meet a shock runs through both of them, and her hands fist in his hair and he drops his wand with a clatter and clutches her to him almost frantically. His mouth is hot and he parts her lips expertly, tongue slipping into the wet warmth of her mouth, tracing the blunt edges of her teeth and swirling around her tongue, sending toe-curling, shuddering wrenches of arousal through her. She doesn't know what the _hell _she is doing, but Malfoy is moaning into her mouth, and one of his hands clutches her bum, and the other is flattened hard between her shoulder blades holding her close, and his lips are drawing the sweetest pleasure out of her.

Malfoy tastes how he smells – like spices and a clean, damp heat, and Hermione is tangled with him, mindless and helpless, pressed against the desk with his erection pressing into her and her fingers knotted in his hair, and it is _good_. It is a good madness that she _welcomes_, throwing caution and reason and everything but this to the winds, wrapped in Malfoy's arms, kissing Malfoy's mouth so wantonly and so eagerly it should embarrass her but it doesn't. But then, too soon, he drags himself back and sucks in a shocked breath, and she is panting, and so is he, and they stare at each other for a frozen second, a little bit of sanity intruding on the moment, and Hermione remembers what she _should _be doing.

"Wha–" She licks her lips, chest heaving as she stares up at Malfoy, who looks like a different person, his grey eyes bright and his lips kiss-reddened, desire for her – _her_, this is _madness_ – written all over his face. His fingers come up and trail down her cheek and along the line of her jaw, a strange, frightened sort of wonder in his eyes. It is too much. She can't – can't understand…_anything._ Hermione tries again, trying to be focused because she _needs _to know, "What is the cabinet for, Malfoy?"

His face goes dark and stony, his eyes thunderclouds and his swollen, so-deliciously-kissable-lips flatten and go hard, he shoves himself back from Hermione and scoops up his wand. She pulls hers automatically, getting her aim on him at the same time as he points his wand tip at her. "Stop!" she cries frantically, everything she knows about who Malfoy is now, running through her head. He is not the Malfoy she thought he was – is he? Hermione doesn't know. She doesn't know anything, anymore. Nothing at all. She is adrift and her conceptions of who Malfoy is are torn apart, and she doesn't quite know how it happened. Except she _does._

That first _'please' _he had said to her, when they'd run into each other in the corridor. His tears in the prefects' bathroom and the quiet _'thank you'_ he had given her. The distant civility he treated her with instead of his usual contempt. How he had helped her to the hospital wing. The afternoon they had passed reading companionably, and the choked way he said her name when she fled. All the faint near-smiles he had given her across the classroom or the Great Hall. The miserable terror and desperation that seemed to be eating him up from the inside out. The self-loathing on his face as he stared in the mirror before while he… That is how it happened. The little moments that made them both people in each others' eyes, all the little moments.

Hermione gasps for panicked breath. She should hate Malfoy, but she can't. She _feels_ for him. Not just general human compassion, either, but _desire _and – and _caring_. This is utterly unacceptable, but it is fact and Hermione admits it to herself. But that doesn't change what Malfoy is doing in here with those creatures and the cabinet, why he cried when the bird came back dead. She knows it is not good; she can _feel_ it is the sort of thing that cannot be good. It can't. There is no good that comes of locking animals in cabinets and taking them out a few minutes later, dead, with displaced organs. That is Dark magic, and Hermione's chest _hurts_.

"What is it for, Malfoy? The cabinet. I – I have to know. I _have_ to."

"If you tell anyone about this, I'll – I'll –" Malfoy says, ignoring her question. His hands are on Hermione's shoulders like he wants to shake her, but instead they are petting at her helplessly and trembling, as if he is caught between desires. He doesn't quite look angry, he looks…torn. Confused. Horrified. His lips tremble and his eyes are fixed on her face, his threat trailing off into impotency. Hermione clutches her hands together in front of her, stifling the mad urge to touch Malfoy and calm him. She swallows dryly, throat feeling thick.

"I – I won't. I won't tell. I swear."

Malfoy frowns in swift bewilderment. "Why?" His voice is soft and rough, and Hermione can barely meet his eyes, her heart _pounding_ and her head swimming. "Because…because…" Because of his misery and his odd almost kindnesses lately, but mostly because of the way it had felt when they'd kissed just now – the fact that they had kissed at all. Hermione's hands snap out and seize his still unbuttoned shirt, and she pushes up onto her toes – mad mad_ mad_ – and her lips press firm against his again. There is a frozen moment of indecision where his mouth is horribly unresponsive under hers, and then his fingers clamp down hard on her shoulders and his lips part.

Malfoy does not kiss like Hermione thought he would, although she doesn't know how she thought he'd kiss. He kisses with a trembling, barely controlled ferocity, his lips moving soft but insistent, his tongue teasing and dipping, his teeth nibbling, and his fingers digging bruises into her flesh. Hermione loses her breath and drags it in through her nose rather than part from him and end this moment, her tongue tangling with Malfoy's. He is so hot and so slick, and all clutching, half-angry desperation. Twining thrills run down her spine and arousal coils like a snake in her belly, writhing and greedy. She smells him, tastes him, feels him, and it is unlike anything she could have ever expected…and _she likes it._

They kiss for mere moments although it feels endless while they are clung together, but then reality reasserts itself roughly and Draco's hands jerk back, and his mouth pulls away. For a brief second, Hermione feels utterly bereft – wants to go after his mouth and catch it again, but she shoves the wild urge down. They stand panting and staring at each other, Hermione's fingers flexing with the desire to wrap in the smooth, crisp fabric of his shirt again. She wrings her hands together instead, speechless and dizzied.

You tell, and I'll fucking –"

"I won't." Hermione licks her lips and stares at Malfoy, so frightened, so confused. She doesn't know what just happened, but it was momentous, and she has no idea how to cope with it at all. She narrows her eyes at him, trying to find her equilibrium by reverting to her snappish self. "I _should_ tell; I _should_." She swallows hard. "But I won't."

Malfoy's face tightens, his lips whitening and lines appearing around his shadowed eyes. "Why did you do that?" he asks, and Hermione knows he means the touches to his shoulders and neck that ended with her fingers curled in his hair, and his lips meeting hers. Her eagerness and the moans that had broken from her mouth into his. And then there was her initiation of the second kiss and the fierce desire that had bubbled up inside her, from _where _she has no idea. Two kisses. Two of them. Oh _Merlin_, what has she done? Hermione sucks in a deep breath. She tells him the stark, unadorned truth.

"Because I wanted to."

Malfoy's face flashes over with pain and anger, and he turns and walks away toward his bag without another word. But she can't let him go, not like this. Hermione stamps her foot like a child, furious and shrill. "Don't you dare just walk away from me!" she half-shrieks, tears in her eyes, and he freezes. And then he grabs up his bag and turns around, walking back to her, his eyes dark in his white face. He stops a pace away from Hermione, looking coldly down at her, but she can see the trapped desperation lurking in his eyes behind the mask.

"Why the fuck _not_, Granger? Why would I stay _here?_"

She blinks back tears. "What…what was – _is_ this? I – I can't – I don't –"

"You tell me," he demands sharp and low, and tears cloud Hermione's eyes, making Malfoy look wavery and indistinct. She doesn't _know_. There's nothing she can _say_. Malfoy nods, his features stony. "Exactly. Exactly," he says, his eyes dark and icy as he stares down at her. "_This_ – this is _nothing_. Nothing at fucking all."

Hermione stands rooted to the ground as he turns and walks for the doors, his bag slung over one shoulder. A shudder tears through her and she wrenches in a jagged breath just as the doors open for him. "Malfoy!" she calls frantically, clutching the edge of the desk behind her with white-knuckled fingers, feeling faint. He ignores her. "Draco!" she yells and his feet halt for a split second, and then he is walking again, and he is gone, and Hermione is left a gasping wreck alone in the Room.

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**Author's Note: **So, so eager to hear your reactions to the reveal! Please review and tell me what you thought of it!

This was meant to be just a silly little story, but it's actually gained a bit of serious hurt/comfort kind of depth, that we'll delve into next chapter…which will either be the last chapter, plus an epilogue, or the second-to-last chapter :)


	4. Part Four

**Author's Note: **Thank you so much wonderful, amazing, splendiferous reviewers! I adore you all immensely! My muse is being contrary, my computer monitor died recently (as did my dearly loved grandfather) and as a result, my chances to settle down and focus on writing are somewhat more infrequent and unproductive. But I'll get there in the end! Look out for the Firefly and Princess Bride references this chapter :) And I hope you enjoy!

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**4.**

**Sunday 6****th**** April, 1997**

Hermione feels as though she is going to her own execution, or about to leap off the edge of a cliff, the Map crackling in a pocket of her robes as she hurries along. She feels certain she must look dreadfully suspicious, flustered, and breathless with nerves, but luckily the only students she comes across are ones she does not know well. Her heart thuds heavy and hard in her chest as her feet lead her quickly toward the Room. She looks at her watch nervously, and seeing only five minutes have passed since she left the common room, resists the urge to pull out the map and check Malfoy is still there. He must be.

Hermione had been helping Harry and Ron organise study plans with the Map tucked in amongst her notes, her eyes unwillingly flicking to it now and then, to see where Malfoy was. She couldn't seem to help herself. Twenty minutes ago, Malfoy went up to the seventh floor and disappeared off the Map. Hermione spent the first fifteen minutes agonising over whether she should go to the Room or keep avoiding Malfoy. In the end it had been Harry and Ron who had told her to go – they'd noticed her distraction and asked her why, and stupidly she had told the truth – that Malfoy was in the Room. Harry practically begged her to go off and spy on Malfoy for him – he had a 32 inch Potions essay due tomorrow, and hadn't even begun it.

Slowing to a halt in front of the blank piece of wall where the Room is, Hermione thinks she is rather glad Harry has pushed her into going. She isn't going to see Malfoy because she _wants_ to, she tells herself – she is going because Harry told her to. But that is a flimsy pretext, and she knows it; Harry's request only gave her false justification to do what she wants to. To see Malfoy. Why, Hermione isn't quite sure yet, exactly. She shuts her eyes and pleads with the Room to let her in, thinking of Malfoy.

They have not spoken since Aprils Fools Day, although they both watch each other with suspicious, confused eyes whenever they are in the same room. Hermione has even found it difficult to concentrate in the classes she shares with Malfoy, her gaze always drawn to that expressive mouth. Hermione knows what he tastes like now. She knows the soft slant of those lips on her lips, the hot, tantalising drag of his tongue, teasing her, and she can't forget. She has even dreamt of him, twice, of repeat kisses that turned into more – oh, so, so much more. And Hermione has seen the way Malfoy still picks at his food, has seen how the bruises under his eyes are darkening – she has heard a teacher try to speak to him about his dropping marks, and observed the way he has become a pariah in his own House.

It is worrying, on more than one level. In the past several days, Hermione has found herself both worried _for_ Malfoy, and worried _about_ him – what he might be doing with that cabinet. So far, what research she has managed to do has not turned up anything, but Hermione is certain she will find out what the cabinet is eventually. She wishes she could talk to Harry and Ron about Malfoy's suspicious behaviour with the cabinet, but she can't. If she does Harry will confront Malfoy, and Hermione knows the Slytherin well enough to know that he will have no qualms about throwing the kiss in Hermione's face and telling everyone about it. She doesn't want that; she is so ashamed by it, she can't have Harry and Ron and everyone else knowing she snogged the Ferret.

And…if she is honest with herself, she is oddly protective of the strange intimacy of the moment she and Malfoy shared. Hermione has dreamt of him twice, and she wakes _not hating him_, wakes to feel a curious, frightening mix of pity and desire. The kiss…Harry and Ron would make it into something disgusting and sordid and terrible, and it wasn't, it really _wasn't_. Hermione desperately wants to talk to Malfoy now, for him to tell her he's not doing anything that could kill someone. Nothing _too_ terrible. She doesn't think he will be able to tell her that, but she wants him to, because – and the knowledge shakes Hermione to the core – because she wants to kiss him again, without the burden of fear and guilt hanging over her.

She recoils from that thought, but even as she jerks in a breath and clenches her fists in hot shame and anger at herself, the Room opens to her. As though by thinking about the occupant, like that, before the shame and anger kicked in, Hermione has passed the Room's scrutiny and is allowed to enter. She pulls herself sharply together and slips inside, her heart pounding and palms sweaty. "Malfoy?" She holds a hand over her eyes as she calls his name, not wanting to violate his privacy if he is… Although, a dark little part of her is rather tempted by the idea of seeing Malfoy like that again; his head thrown back, cheeks flushed, dragging in hitching breaths and making stifled, low sounds of pleasure... A thrill dances up Hermione's spine.

She takes another blind step.

"Malfoy, are you –" Her call is cut off as a hot mouth slams against hers, greedy and forceful, and Hermione gasps, her lips parting. Her hand falls from her still-shut eyes and she utters a little moan that is swallowed by Malfoy's mouth as he kisses her thoroughly, his hands clutching her shoulders hard, holding her to him. His lips move quick and hungry, his tongue dips and plays, sending shocking, quivering want into the centre of her. Hermione has never been kissed like this before. A few clumsy snogs with Viktor is the extent of her experience, and the pleasure she got from kissing Viktor pales in comparison to the arousal slamming through her now, nearly frightening in its intensity.

Malfoy is breathing raggedly through his nose, his fingers dig into Hermione's shoulders painfully, and his mouth – oh his _mouth_ – moves against hers with a skill and ferocity that makes her breathless and trembling. Her hands slide to seize clumps of his hair, and she sways into him, coherent thought swept away in the force of his onslaught. And it _is_ an onslaught. Malfoy is not kissing gently, or tenderly, he is fierce and rough and Merlin help her, Hermione loves it. His tongue curls over hers and send ripples of throbbing lust to the slick flesh between her thighs. His muffled sounds of pleasure and want make her knees weak and her hairs stand on end. The tug of his lips and teeth on her bottom lip, the glide of his tongue over the blunt edges of her teeth, the way he sucks delicately on the very tip of her tongue…it sets a fire raging in her, and Hermione is happy to burn.

And then after long, blurred moments Malfoy shifts his grip from Hermione's shoulders to her back, and bum. She jolts at that – the feel of Malfoy's long fingers splayed so intimately over her bum, even with her uniform and robes between his hand and her flesh. She is jerked back to herself and dithers for a moment over whether or not to pull away, but his drugging kisses drag her back under. It is only when he yanks her fully flush against him and she feels his erection pressing into her belly that real fear strikes her. This is Malfoy. This is _Malfoy_ that Hermione is doing this with, and suddenly it is all too much. With a whimper that Draco echoes, Hermione tears her mouth away from his.

She wriggles panting in his arms, staggering a step back when he immediately releases her, and her eyes fly open at last. She sees his face first, as she blinks her vision into focus. His cheeks are flushed, eyes glazed, lips swollen and damp and reddened, his shoulders moving with the heave of his breath, shirt unbuttoned showing a lean, pale chest…and then Malfoy darts forward and clamps his hand over Hermione's eyes. "Close your eyes," he growls as she yelps in anger and indignation, and he swears as she shoves blindly at his chest and tries to stomp on his feet.

"Salazar's fucking sake, Granger! Stop it! Close your bloody Merlin-damned eyes and I'll let go of you. Just close your eyes," he half-orders half-pleads, voice low and hoarse from their kisses. Hermione just rears back and grabs at his wrist, trying to wrench his hand away with both hers as she kicks rather ineffectively at his legs. "Let me go _no!_"

"No. Not until you shut your bloody eyes! Shit, Granger, I'm not asking a lot, here," he says and Hermione can't help thinking how _stupid_ he is. She has seen him in a skirt before – there is no point in him going to these lengths to try to hide it now. A bit late, really. And how _dare_ he manhandle her like this, the git.

"Let me _go!_" She sinks her short nails into the flesh of his bony wrist hard enough to draw blood and he yelps and lets her go. She stumbles back until she hits something solid and blinks at him, her angry expression melting away as she see him. He looks strange – there is no getting past that. Hermione is unfamiliar with cross-dressing, and she certainly doesn't have a fetish for it, so Malfoy just looks…odd. He is clutching his wrist, face contorted and red with anger and embarrassment as he swears filthily and viciously at her. She takes a breath, feeling empathy for him, for his vulnerability and the shame he is obviously feeling.

"It –" she begins.

"Don't, Granger," he hisses warningly, and she glares at him and finishes anyway. "It looks a little like a, ah, kilt," she says weakly, trying to make Malfoy feel less embarrassed, and he scowls. "Shut up, Granger."

He keeps scowling, and Hermione notes how unattractive that sneer is compared to how he'd looked while he was…wanking. He had looked undeniably sexy, then. He growls to himself, and then snaps at her. "Shut your eyes." He pauses and then adds a sullen, "Please."

"Fine, although I don't see the point, Malfoy. I've already seen you, I can't exactly un-see it," Hermione argues, but she closes her eyes and waits for long minutes. She can hear the slide of fabric in the dark behind her eyes, and a picture of him changing springs into her mind's eye, disconcertingly vivid. And…appealing.

"What are you doing here?" Malfoy asks, his voice coming from so close that Hermione squeaks. She opens her eyes to his chest a foot away from her, oxford shirt buttoned now. She raises her gaze to his face and counters boldly, "Why did you kiss me?"

"Because I hadn't finished wanking when you barged in," he answers crudely, and Hermione's face burns and she gulps and looks away from him. "And when a pretty witch interrupted, seeing as I couldn't finish myself I thought I may as well snog her and get something out of her rude bloody behaviour."

Hermione's gaze flies back to his face, shock rocking her. "You think I'm pretty?"

His features turn stony and blank for a moment, and he shrugs. "Passable. These days, anyway."

She glares and folds her arms over her chest. "Prat."

They stare at each other in awkward silence for a moment, Hermione growing more and more uncomfortable under Malfoy's blank stare. "I haven't told anyone," she says, more to break the silence than anything else, because it's self-evident that she hasn't told.

"I didn't expect you would," he says with arrogant assurance. "You gave your word, and you're Gryffindor to the noble, self-righteous core – you wouldn't break a promise."

"That's not why I didn't tell." She is breathless and her heart is slamming against her ribs, she is chilly and clammy with fear-sweat. He just stares at her, and she frowns. "Don't you want to know why?"

"I have a feeling you mean to tell me whether I want to know or not, Granger."

Merlin, he's infuriating! Hermione snaps furiously, "I didn't want to get you into trouble. I didn't _want _to tell. You seem so…miserable…and there's obviously something wrong, something going on, and I – I want to –"

"What? _Befriend_ me? Give me your pity? Try to _help_ me?" he asks scathingly, and Hermione flinches back from the venom of him.

"No," she denies haltingly, because isn't that partly what she's been thinking? "No. I – I want to – want to…" She doesn't know how to explain it properly, not even to herself. It is a strange muddle of wanting to find out what Malfoy's up to, and other less noble thoughts and feelings that she doesn't want to examine too closely. She shakes herself and changes the subject.

"Tell me why you kissed me, _really_."

Malfoy stares at her steadily, unflustered. "I already told you."

"And I don't believe you. If Ginny Weasley had walked in here, you wouldn't have kissed her."

"You sure of that, are you?"

"You wouldn't!"

He scrunches up his nose. "No, I wouldn't, truthfully. She's a _Weasley_."

"And I'm the mudblood that you hate!"

"If you say so," he says with amused superiority, smirking faintly at Hermione, and _ooh_, she just wants to grab him and shake him, or slap him.

"Why?" she demands. She desperately wants him to classify whatever it is that has happened between them, twice now. Hermione wants to be able to stick a label on it – preferably, 'hormonal mistake' – and file it neatly away to attempt to forget about, and she needs to know why he kissed her like that just now before she can do that. He arches an eyebrow at her, gives her a slow, lazy smile. "Didn't you like it?"

"I…" She boggles at him in mute shock. He takes a step closer, his eyes silver in the bluish light of the room, glinting down at her like a predator's. Her heart races as he speaks. "You came here – you didn't tell anyone – because you wanted me to kiss you again," he tells her in a low, silky tone. "And that's why I kissed you."

He is so close to her; it feels like he's sucked all the oxygen out of the room, and Hermione's mouth is dry. She swallows with difficulty. "Since when do you do what I want?" she snaps as indignation and denial bubbles up in her.

"So you _do _want me to?"

"No!" she cries, her thoughts all jumbled by Malfoy's words, mind whirling in mixed up confusion, and that is when Malfoy dips his head and presses his lips to hers. Just a brief, decorous touch of soft, warm lips and Hermione's breath shudders out of her and her pulse leaps as he straightens. She doesn't want him to stop, she realises with a distant sort of horror. There is an arrogant smirk on his lips, but it is wobbly and weak.

"There," he says huskily. "I did what you _didn't_ want me to do. Is _that_ more to your liking?" And Hermione blinks dazedly at Malfoy, and on a breathless exhale, utters a very faint, "Yes…"

That is all it takes and he is on her again, his hands sliding around her waist beneath her robes, yanking her to him. "Malfoy…"

"Shut up, Granger," he says, staring down at her intently, and then before she can formulate the words to speak again, he slants his mouth over hers and Hermione is lost. Kissing Malfoy is like kissing some strange personification of a lightning bolt; every slide of their tongues together, every shift of his hands on her waist and back, every low, hungry, sensual sound he makes – it all sends shocking, electric thrills through her. Kissing Malfoy is adrenaline-filled, dangerous, and carries the near certainty of getting burnt, but it is unavoidable, striking before she can react, and all she can do is ride it out. Merlin, it's brilliant.

Her hands roam him from the waist up, and he is whip-thin and the heat is pouring off him, his every muscle is coiled with tension. She kisses him back hard, lust making her reckless. She fights him for control of the kiss, but all her efforts do is deepen it, raise their mutual urgency, and then neither of them is in control anymore.

Hermione is slick and throbbing between her legs, and Malfoy is hard – she can feel it against her belly as he backs her up against something and pins her between it and himself. He catches her bottom lip between his two and sucks, and heat suffuses her. She runs her tongue over his in circling twirls, and he shivers under her hands and his hips jerk out, pushing his cock harder against her. There is no back and forth, no give and take between them. It is all take, take, _take_, and Hermione embraces that. She feels scandalous beyond all belief, knowing that Harry and Ron would feel utterly betrayed and not caring a fig, right now.

There is something so terrifyingly liberating about being jammed up against something with Malfoy's hands toying with her breasts through what suddenly feels like too many layers of clothing, his erection grinding into her abdomen with a desperate, needy want. They breathe raggedly through their noses, occasionally breaking apart to suck in fresh, cool air, and then he nibbles and teases at her throat and neck, and she kisses and bites along the sensitive lines of his sharp jaw. She feels so _bad_ doing something as taboo as snogging Malfoy, but while she knows she may well be racked with guilt later, in the moment she simply cannot bring herself to care.

It is Malfoy who finally brings their snogging session to its inevitable frustrating end, pulling his mouth away from hers with a finality she senses. Instead of jerking back and going stony and nasty like she expects him to, Malfoy just rests his forehead against Hermione's. He shudders out a breath, his fingers coming up and gently dragging over her lips. Hermione stares into grey eyes just inches from hers, and a frisson hangs in the air between them.

"I – I have to – I have things I need to…" Malfoy says, his reluctance evident in his eyes and the way he speaks. He wants to keep kissing her, and the strangeness of that is only topped by the fact that Hermione wants to keep kissing him too. She feels like she should say something, feels like they should talk about what in Merlin's pants is going on between them, but she doesn't. She just nods her forehead slightly against his, her head spinning and the flesh between her thighs throbbing and begging insistently for the pleasure to continue to its natural end.

"All –" Her voice is unnaturally low and husky, and she flushes and clears her throat. "All right. I – I…" She is lost for words as Malfoy's fingers trace down the side of her face in what can only be described as a gentle caress. The touch lights her up, makes her tingly and warm, and oh _Godric_, she doesn't want him to stop. "Thank you," she says stupidly at last, and he smiles at her in amusement, and something more that she can't untangle. It is a heart-stoppingly sweet expression, and it transforms him completely. Hermione drinks in the sight of him, committing this moment, his uncharacteristic smile, to her memory. "I still won't tell."

"I know."

"Are you – are you going to…? With the cabinet?" Hermione asks incoherently, and Malfoy steps back from her and she feels cold at the loss of his body heat, and his smile. His face becomes drawn and closed off from her.

"Don't ask me about that, Granger. It's none of your business."

"Is it something for Voldemort? Or something bad…that you shouldn't be doing?" She can't stop herself from pressing him on the subject, because really this is what she should be focused on, not kissing him, like some cheap Knockturn Alley tart. He flinches minutely and blanches even paler at her words; although he covers the flinch quite well, he cannot hide the way the blood drains from his face.

"What part of, _'it's none of your business'_ don't you understand?" he prevaricates, snarky and nasty, but his reaction has already confirmed what Hermione had been sure of – whatever he's doing with that cabinet, it's either very bad, or very bad and for Voldemort. She still hopes Harry is wrong and it's not for Voldemort and Malfoy is not a Death Eater, but either way, Malfoy's words are as good as a splash of icy water to the face, and Hermione is shocked out of her lust-drugged daze. She slips her hand into the pocket of her robes and absently fingers the patterns carved into her wand. The good feelings have drained out of the moment, and the Room feels bleak. But what else should Hermione have expected from Malfoy?

She shouldn't keep his secret for him any longer, whether she promised or not, whether she wants to give him a chance or not. If Dumbledore was at Hogwarts, Hermione would go to him immediately without any qualms, but he isn't. She refuses to tell Harry and Ron, knowing how violently and dramatically they would react – or rather, over-react. Hermione even flinches from the idea of informing Professor McGonagall, although she will if she must. But must she, yet? Malfoy sees her hand in her pocket and she can tell he knows she's clutching her wand. He stands very silent, still and ready, his eyes cold and lips compressed.

"I – I can't – I should… You're doing something you shouldn't with that cabinet, Malfoy, and we both know it. I may be a Gryffindor, but I'm not thick." She narrows her eyes on him. "I _should_ tell Professor McGonagall." She sees him gulp, sees the fear flicker on his face; he looks trapped, desperate, and she wonders again _what_ exactly he is doing, and just how dangerous it might be.

"Please don't. Granger, please." The words are forced from him unwilling, but they are completely sincere and Hermione is scared by that – what could prompt him to say please to her like that? – but she is swayed by it too. She knows she should march straight out of there to Professor McGonagall's office and tell her everything – except the cross-dressing – but Merlin help her, she doesn't want to. Maybe, Hermione thinks, maybe she can coax the truth out of Malfoy herself, and convince him to stop whatever it is he's doing without involving anyone else. If she just waits a little while before turning to the Headmaster or Professor McGonagall, just gives Malfoy a chance to make the right decision on his own. After all, Malfoy has obviously been working on this whatever-it-is since the start of the year, and from what she saw on April Fools Day, he doesn't seem even close to achieving his aim. What difference could a couple of weeks make?

Hermione knows full well she's only giving him this chance because of the misery written all over him and the burning flutters he makes her feel, and she is ashamed of herself. Deeply ashamed. "Tell me it's not for Voldemort," she demands, looking for justification, reassurance that her burgeoning decision isn't totally unwise, and Malfoy gives her a look she can't decipher before he answers.

"It's not for Voldemort," he says clearly, and Hermione watches him as he speaks the words with complete truthfulness, and she believes him. Maybe she shouldn't, because he is Malfoy and a Slytherin, but she does. Godric help her, she _does_. There is something in his face as he stares unflinchingly into her eyes that makes her want to try to befriend him and help him, like he had accused her of wanting to do. Help _Malfoy_. Merlin, this must be what going mad feels like.

"I'll keep your secret then. _For now_," she allows, staring him down. She feels like she ought to say something more, but again her brain fails her, and she can think of nothing appropriate to say. The silence stretches out between them, wrapping them up in dim blue light and quiet, and she finds it difficult to drag her eyes from his face as he finally says, quietly, "Thank you. Hermione."

Her name soft on his lips; the lips that such a short time ago had been kissing her lips and throat and jaw, creating such delicious sensations thrilling through her. It is an alien experience hearing him speak her name like that, and it rattles Hermione to the core. She nods awkwardly, jerkily at him, and then sidles past him with her head ducked to avoid his eyes, striding fast for the doors of the Room. His voice stops her in her tracks as she pulls a door ajar. "I'll be here tomorrow evening. At seven." Her head spins and she feels nearly dizzy as she sucks in air. He has…he has…invited her? It doesn't make any sense, although remembering the way his erection had ground into her, seeking the pleasure of friction, maybe it did, in a twisted way. Maybe he is just using her like a Knockturn Alley whore, but she can't believe that.

She doesn't respond, just darts out the door and pulls it shut behind her, and and panting in the corridor, her eyes wide and frantic. Tomorrow night, at seven. She means to be there – she doesn't even make the choice, she just knows she has to be there – dragons could not keep her from it. Hermione has…work to do. She has to find out what he's doing with that cabinet, and dissuade him from it, because Malfoy or not, son of a Death Eater or not, there is still a chance he could walk a different path than the one his father has undoubtedly laid out from him. He doesn't have to be on the other side, he doesn't _have_ to be a bad person, and she can tell from her every interaction with him this year, from everything she has observed, that he is miserable doing what he is doing. So maybe…just maybe…

And then, there is the other part of it. Her hand goes to her kiss-tender lips as she walks quickly along the corridor toward the common room. Yes, there is the other part of it. She feels the guilt of enjoying what they have done lying leaden in her mind, along with the guilt and uncertainty over her decision to keep his secret – for now. But her stomach flutters and her very bones seem to fizz with exhilarated rightness as she traces her lips. Hermione doesn't know if she's made the right decision – in fact, she's rather sure she's made the wrong one, but she's already made it and she's not going back on it. Hermione has made her choice. She hopes desperately that she doesn't regret it.

But she will be there tomorrow, at seven, and she is willing to accept whatever consequences come of that choice.

**Wednesday 8****th**** April, 1997**

"No success at accessing the Room yet?" Harry asks Hermione quietly as they walk down to breakfast side by side, Ron lagging behind them with Lavender hanging off him sickeningly. Hermione can't bring herself to look at Harry as she shakes her head in the negative.

"No." Hermione looks down so that her loose hair falls forward around her face to hide the heat in her cheeks. She went to the Room at seven the evening before – as she had planned to do – and she hadn't left until near on eight-thirty. Over an hour spent in a confused, breathless tangle with Malfoy, what little talk that did pass between them terribly stilted and defensive. It had left her feeling extremely conflicted in herself, and she didn't like the feeling. But oh, she loved the way it felt when he kissed her.

"No. Not yet. But I want to keep trying," she says softly, glancing at Harry as her blush fades, and he grins at her affectionately, nudges her in the side with his elbow. "Well, if anyone can figure out how to get in there and catch Malfoy, the ferrety git, it'll be you, 'Mione," he says encouragingly, green eyes bright and guileless on her, and she cringes inwardly.

"So, did you manage to get that Defence essay finished off last night without me prodding you to get onto it, or did you spend the evening losing to Ron at chess?" she asks him briskly, changing the subject with relief.

"Nah, Ron was tied up with _Lav-Lav_ all evening. Poor bastard near got his face snogged right off. It was horrible." He makes a face. "So was the Defence essay. I'm sure Snape's going to tear it to bloody shreds." As luck has it, Harry sets off into a rant about Professor Snape as they wait for the stairs to swing their grinding way over to them. He requires only sympathetic noises, nods, and the occasional mildly relevant word of advice or agreement to keep going, and it gives Hermione's mind the chance to berate her. She is fixating on how she just lied to her best friend. She feels terrible; so incredibly guilty that she's surprised even Harry can't tell.

Hermione outright lied to Harry, in order to keep a dangerous secret for Malfoy, and to enable her to keep sneaking off and snogging him. She is essentially betraying Harry, in spirit if not in technical fact, and all because of _Malfoy_, of all people. And although part of her reasoning is well-meaning; trying to discover what Malfoy is doing – and convincing him to stop – without involving hot-headed Harry or invoking the gravity of informing the authorities, the majority of her reasoning is not so righteous. Harry looks plaintively at Hermione as he trots down the stairs beside her, and she thanks Merlin that she is excellent at multi-tasking.

"Oh Harry…" she sighs sympathetically and wearily in response to his most recent lament. She shoots him a motherly look and shakes her head. "You've got to learn to pick your battles."

"I know, but…" Harry's off again, and Hermione knows she should be paying closer attention, but instead she is busy self-flagellating. She is a liar – a terrible, irresponsible liar, and a slut besides – lying to her friends and running off to snog the boy who has always been the enemy, and dislikes her to boot. Keeping secrets that she _knows _should not be kept, even if she is only going to stay quiet another thirteen days. Because then, if she still hasn't finagled the truth out of Malfoy, she'll go to Headmaster Dumbledore, or Professor McGonagall. She will. Really.

She and Harry enter the Great Hall together, heading for the Gryffindor table, with Ron dragging Lavender along with him a few paces behind, complaining about the way Lavender hangs off him. They dissolve into argument and Harry pauses and turns to awkwardly watch, but Hermione is scanning the Great Hall, looking for Malfoy. Her eyes land on him at the end of the Slytherin table, and he is looking directly back at her. The faintest hint of a smile curls Malfoy's lips as their eyes meet, and Hermione's stomach lurches with butterflies the size of trolls, and her pulse races. _Merlin_. She realises very clearly that she is in over her bloody head.

**Tuesday 15****th**** April, 1997**

Tonight is their fourth clandestine meeting since last Saturday, and Hermione is early – she waits nervously for Malfoy on the ancient settee he found in one of the many stacks of furniture and _scourgified_ for their use. Hermione finds herself wanting more than just a handful of awkward words and around an hour or more of snogging that leaves her feeling conflicted and guilty. She has tried to talk to Malfoy but he is entirely uncooperative and cold. It is only when they kiss that he truly seems to come to life. He watches her in class with dulled eyes, and there is something in his gaze that makes Hermione extremely uneasy. So does her visceral reaction to his gaze.

She shifts on the overstuffed, worn settee and buries her face in her hands, sighing with frustration. Perhaps it is time for Hermione to admit to herself that, unlikely, unexpected, and _wildly_ inappropriate as it might be; she is developing feelings for Malfoy. Feelings that she is rather certain Malfoy returns. She tries to tell herself that it is just hormones and chemistry, - after all they barely speak to each other! How could they have developed real feelings? But all she knows is that outside of the Room he looks at her like she is a lifeline – whenever he can do so without others noticing, at least. And inside the Room, he looks at her like she is the most beautiful, desirable woman in the world.

She doesn't know _what _to make of it, because Malfoy thinking her a lifeline or desirable is just…inconceivable. She wonders if Malfoy is as conflicted over what he is doing with the mudblood know-it-all Granger as she is with him. Then she hears the door grate, and knows it must be him; who else could it be. Her heart leaps and her breath speeds up as she catches sight of him, but when he nears, her anticipation is replaced by worry. He looks near dead on his feet with weariness. He didn't look this awful throughout the day; perhaps he'd had a glamour up, or just hadn't looked as terrible at a distance. Either way, right now, close up, he looks dreadful. There are dark stains of sleeplessness and stress beneath his eyes and his features are drawn and strained, his already pale complexion is positively ghostly pallid. He looks about ready to fall down.

"Granger," he greets her wearily, and sinks to the settee beside her with an air about him that implies there will be none of the usual frantic snogging he initiates.

"Malfoy." Her hands knot in her lap as she twists to face him, tucking a leg up under her. "You look terrible." She lets her voice fill with concern and empathy, and he shoots her an uncertain glance.

"I _feel _terrible," he answers at last, pushing his fringe off his forehead and groaning, slumping further down on the settee. Hermione bites her lips. They are not following their script of brief, awkward greetings, and urgent, mindless snogging coupled with tentative touches. This is something entirely different, and Hermione isn't sure how she should handle it.

"I – do you want me to go?" she asks, and his hand darts out and grabs her wrist as she shifts on the settee.

"No." His eyes are grey shattered glass, sharp and pleading. "No, I don't."

She doesn't know what to do, and racks her brain; perhaps, she thinks suddenly with a flash of nervous excitement, this would be a good chance to finally have a proper conversation. But she'll have to tread very, very carefully with Malfoy. "Is there anything I can do?"

He drops his head back against the high back of the ancient settee and smiles at her tiredly, his grip shifting from encircling her wrist to enfold her hand. "No, Granger. Not unless…" He doesn't finish and she curls her fingers around his.

"Unless what?"

"Don't bother." He smirks, knowing what she was half-heartedly trying to do. "I'm not going to tell you anything."

"It was worth a try," she acknowledges, and they share a small, knowing smile that leaves Hermione's insides churning. She watches Malfoy as he shuts his eyes and clasps there hands even tighter together.

"There is one thing you can do, Granger," he says softly, haltingly, and Hermione waits eagerly for him to come out with whatever he seems to be debating saying. She wants to help him if it is in her power to do so, because no one should look as miserable, despairing and hopeless as Malfoy does. It offends her sense of rightness, especially now that she has learnt Malfoy is no longer as…horrible…as he used to be. He cracks his eyes open to slits and a flush appears high on his cheeks. "You could, ah…" He is red and he is watching her like a hawk as he swallows hard and works to get the words out, a naked kind of need on his face. "You could just sit with me, and…pretend you don't hate me."

Hermione thinks that might be the saddest thing she has ever heard. Malfoy just wants her to sit with him, and _pretend_ she doesn't hate him. He tugs on her hand gently, and his intent is clear; he wants her pressed up beside him, and her heart stutters with fear and an anticipation she doesn't deny. "I don't hate you," she says simply and shifts closer to him, all tangled, jangling nerves at the alien nature of the situation. There is an important distinction between snogging and snuggling, and somehow with Malfoy, snuggling seems far more intimate.

"You don't?" he asks in a low voice, and she feels the tension buzzing through him as she tucks herself against his thin side, his arm slipping around her waist. The feel of his arm around her like that is shocking but pleasant, and the splay of his hand at the side of her stomach sends her mind whirling, her breath catching.

"No, I don't. I haven't hated you for a long time. Not since that day, in the prefects' bathroom," she admits, feeling the tips of his long fingers stroking over her stomach, feeling the rise and fall of his chest as he breathes, her head resting against the juncture of his shoulder and chest. So frighteningly intimate.

"I should hate you," he says after a long, surprisingly comfortable silence. "I'm supposed to."

"But you don't?"

"No. In fact, I – I like you altogether too much."

Hermione is stunned into utter silence. She can't seem to draw a proper breath, jerking in short, shallow mouthfuls, her chest tight and her forehead furrowed as she tries to process what Malfoy just admitted. She feels like she could almost pass out just from the sheer shock of hearing him say that. Malfoy – Malfoy _likes_ her. Oh, oh, oh dear _Godric_. She has gotten herself into a mess of catastrophic proportions; because Malfoy's words might terrify her, but they also make her so happy she could just about float away. She is buoyed by happiness, stuffed by it, and it is both ridiculous and wonderful, and very, very bad.

"But I – but you – but…" She twists her head so she can meet his eyes, and his face is tight with the fear of rejection. "This is a bad idea," she says quietly.

"Yes, it is."

"We shouldn't."

"Oh, I realise that, trust me, Granger."

"Hermione," she corrects him, stepping of the edge of the cliff into the abyss, passing the point of no return. One corner of his mouth tips up.

"Hermione," he echoes.

"Why?" She wants – no, _needs_ to know why, to try to make sense of it, but he just shrugs.

"I've asked myself that question a hundred fucking times, trust me, Hermione. And I still haven't found a proper answer. Not one that satisfies me, at any rate."

"Try me," she says, expression fierce.

"All right, then." He closes his tired eyes, fingers still brushing over her stomach, having found their way under her jersey, only the thin cloth of her shirt between her skin and his fingers. She watches him, enjoying the chance to stare at him without him seeing, taking in the shadows his eyelashes make on his cheeks, the way he purses his lips, the sharpness of him; all angles. "You've been civil to me, when you have every reason to be cruel. You've been…_kind_, even, at a point when every bloody person in this whole damned school despises me. I suppose it got under my skin. _You_ got under my skin, Hermione. I started seeing you differently –mush to my dismay. Part of that difference being that I realised I was – am, Salazar save me – attracted to you." Malfoy's tone is wry, clinical, and when he finishes he opens one eye to briefly scan Hermione's face, before shutting it again. "Is that what you wanted to know?"

It is, actually. It is…dry and not at all romantic, really, but it is a reason that Hermione can understand, and she is satisfied with that. "I – I saw you differently too," she offers, and he snorts self-deprecatingly.

"Yeah, you did."

She flushes. "I didn't mean _that!_"

"It…doesn't repulse you? That I…?" He opens his eyes and they are horribly vulnerable, and Hermione's heart wrenches with compassion.

"To be honest, I found it a little…confusing, and startling, yes, but not at all repulsive. It's not uncommon in the Muggle world, you know, and yes it's often seen as rather…odd, but it's nothing you should be ashamed of." She realises she sound exceedingly impassioned, and he is staring at her like he's never seen her before as he takes in the content of her little rant.

And then, "Oh," he says in a very small voice, like she has said the last thing he would ever expect anyone to say, and he doesn't know if he dares believe her or not. All traces of superior, arrogant smarminess have been stripped away from him, leaving a thin, pale face with grey eyes all bruised around and filled with a dreadful hope. He looks nothing like the Malfoy Hermione once knew.

"There is nothing wrong with it," she assures him again in a soft, firm murmur, and her hand comes up to rest against his chest as she speaks. She can feel his heart beating against her palm, and their eyes are locked. She bolsters her courage. "Seeing – seeing you like that…on April Fools, when…" She knows she must be scarlet with embarrassment because her face feels as though it is on fire, but she forces herself to continue. "It was the strangest, _sexiest_ thing I've ever seen. Truthfully."

He licks his lips and swallows as Hermione pushes herself up, bracing her hands on his chest, one leg slung over his, their faces very, very close. "Truthfully," she repeats, and his hands hover either side of her waist, barely-but-not-quite holding her.

"Pansy found out. Just before the start of sixth year, she caught me… She was fucking horrified. Said – said that I was sick…" he confesses in a whisper so low she has to strain to hear him, even with them so close that she can feel his breath puffing hot on her jaw. Well, that explains a lot of what has been puzzling Hermione; why Pansy broke up with him, why Blaise is taunting him, because he has probably been told by Pansy why she'd broken up with Malfoy, and why he has ostracised himself from the rest of his House, because he probably worries about them finding out. Merlin she feels terrible for him. She stares unwaveringly into Draco's eyes.

"Well Pansy's a narrow-minded bitch," she says matter-of-factly, the swearword rather satisfying on her tongue, and when Draco's lips quirk into an answering smile, Hermione leans in and kisses him decisively. A soft press of parted lips, and Draco's hands clamp around her waist, lifting her and settling her properly astraddle him. The kiss is just a whisper of tongues brushing together and over soft lips, and then Hermione draws back, her heart thundering.

"Draco," she says because she can no longer think of him as 'Malfoy'. "Draco, what in Godric's name are we doing?"

"Something you'll no doubt regret," Draco says hoarsely, and perhaps he is right, but Hermione kisses him again anyway. Because she wants to, sod it, and she's sick of always being responsible.

**# # # # # #**

**Author's Note: **So, what did you think? I'm not sure if perhaps things are progressing a little quickly between them, but being such a short story, that's just how it's ending up. Do you like the dynamic between them? Am I keeping them in character?Reviews please! I need the motivation :D You can find a page with progress updates and a few pretties at Facebook / theriskrewardratio so you can poke me into hurrying up, or see how far through a chapter I am :)


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